Multimorbidity, the co-occurrence of two-or-more long-term conditions in one person, is on the rise globally, reflecting both increased longevity and persistent health inequalities. How to recognise, prevent and manage the diverse range of multimorbidity is a major challenge that health systems of low- and middle-income countries, including in Africa, are particularly unprepared for.
Such systems remain under-resourced, dependent on increasingly unreliable global health funding and unsustainable under current siloes on single infectious diseases. This has obscured the synergistic and endemic interactions between persisting chronic infections and rapidly rising NCDs, and the complex health and social burdens these create. The resulting disease clusters are patterned along the lines of age, race, socioeconomic status, gender and geography.
LSHTM researchers in the Centre for Global Chronic Conditions (CGCC) have contributed to a new collection in which brings together original research into the conceptualisation of multimorbidity and its epidemiology across Africa, the burden of treatment and inaccessibility it imposes, and the role of health systems in exacerbating or ameliorating its burden. The articles include research from LSHTM partner institutions including , from , , and . The articles collectively call for the concerted, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral action to render visible and take urgent action to confront one of Africa’s fastest growing health challenges.
Three years in the making, this collection spans back to a workshop in Blantyre, Malawi, in June 2022 where the was formed as a platform to support Africa-led, family-centred research and care across the continent.
The collection echoes the theme of this year’s CGCC Annual Symposium, held earlier this month. The two-day hybrid event focused on multimorbidity research and collaboration opportunities, with varied presentations from LSHTM and its partner institutions. The programme had a strong focus on sub-Saharan Africa, involving several of the research groups that had contributed to the PLOS Global Public Health Collection.
You can catch up on both days of the Symposium via the recordings:
For any enquires about the collection, or if you are interested in joining the Africa Multimorbidity Alliance, please reach out to flimbani@mlw.mw or justin.dixon@lshtm.ac.uk.
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