The Academy of Medical Sciences has launched a new working group project and is seeking your views on multimorbidity as an international health challenge.
Throughout the world, as life expectancy increases, the population incidence of non-communicable diseases is also increasing. Further, communicable diseases, with both their short and long term sequelae, continue to affect millions of people every year. Together, all of these factors mean that multimorbidity has become, and will increasingly be, an international health challenge.
However, currently there is no commonly used framework for defining or more widely understanding multimorbidity. Further, most health related research is currently focused on the prevention and management of disorders in isolation. Consequently, it is difficult to compile a coherent body of research in this area or develop evidence-based strategies for use in healthcare systems. In order to address the challenge of multimorbidity, we must understand the problem better.
The questions outlined in the call for written evidence have therefore been developed to gather information on the definition(s) of multimorbidity, better understand the current knowledge base on multimorbidity as an international health challenge, and to gather opinions about future priorities and opportunities.
This call is part of our process of gathering external input into the project, and we would welcome responses from external stakeholders, including researchers, healthcare professionals, research institutions, funders, industry, patients and members of the public by 30 November.
For more information about the project and to submit a response, please visit the Academy’s website. If you have any questions, please contact Dr Rachel Brown: rachel.brown@acmedsci.ac.uk.