A Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence of Chronic Disease Co-morbidity Among the Elderly in China

Objective: This paper aims to assess the occurrence of chronic disease co-morbidity among the elderly in China. Methods: The databases of PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang were searched by computer. Single proportion studies on the prevalence of chronic disease co-morbidity among the elderly in China from June 2011 to June 2022. All included articles were quality assessed. The heterogeneity test was performed using the Mantel-Hasenzel algorithm. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software was used for meta-analysis. Results: A total of 31 cross-sectional studies containing 226209 patients were included. Meta-analysis results showed that The prevalence of chronic disease co-morbidity in China aged ≥60 years was 42.8% [95% CI (36.6, 49.3%)]. Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of chronic disease co-morbidity was 37.1% (95% CI (29.6, 45.3%)) in men and 39.5% (95% CI (30.4, 49.3%)) in women; the prevalence of 2 chronic diseases was 51.6% [95% CI (43.9, 59.3%)] and 3 chronic diseases was 25.5% [95% CI (21.0, 30.4%); the prevalence was 45.3% [95% CI (33.7, 57.4%)] in < 2019 and 41.9% [95% CI (35.1, 49.0%)] in ≥ 2019; the prevalence was 74.4% [95% CI (37.6, 93.4%)] in North China and 52.5% [95% CI (33.9, 70.4%)] in East China. Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that the prevalence of chronic disease co-morbidity is high among the elderly in China, but there has been a downward trend in recent years, this study differed by sex, co-morbidity type, region, and time. Limited by the quality of included studies, further studies should be performed to confirm our findings.