Liu Qin, Lu Jiehua
Research Institute of Social Development, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.
Department of Sociology, Peking University, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 28;20(4):e0322042. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0322042. eCollection 2025.
Previous studies linking socioeconomic status (SES) to chronic diseases tended to focus on a single disease. As people age, they are more likely to suffer from multiple coexisting chronic conditions, known as multimorbidity. The study of multimorbidity is one of the key links to understanding the impact of population ageing from a comprehensive perspective. This study used four waves of cross-sectional data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2011 to 2018 to explore the prevalence of multimorbidity and its relationship with socioeconomic status among older adults in China over time. Participants aged 60 and older were selected for analysis. Both the Logistic Regression Model and the Negative Binomial Regression Model were adopted to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status and multimorbidity. The results showed that the prevalence of multimorbidity among older adults in China demonstrated an increasing trend over the years, from 46.16% in 2011 to 57.50% in 2018. A significant association was detected between socioeconomic status and multimorbidity among older adults, which was manifested as the higher the socioeconomic status, the greater the likelihood of being multimorbid. However, the relationship between the two has been changing over time, with the influence of SES on multimorbidity gradually disappearing and then reappearing in the opposite direction. Multimorbidity has become a critical health issue that should not be ignored for older adults in China, and the relationship between socioeconomic status and multimorbidity may be changing over time, which needs to be further explored with data over a longer period of time.
以往将社会经济地位（SES）与慢性病联系起来的研究往往聚焦于单一疾病。随着人们年龄增长，他们更有可能同时患有多种慢性病，即所谓的多病共存。多病共存的研究是从综合角度理解人口老龄化影响的关键环节之一。本研究使用了中国健康与养老追踪调查（CHARLS）2011年至2018年的四轮横断面数据，以探究中国老年人多病共存的患病率及其随时间推移与社会经济地位的关系。选取60岁及以上的参与者进行分析。采用逻辑回归模型和负二项回归模型来检验社会经济地位与多病共存之间的关系。结果显示，中国老年人多病共存的患病率多年来呈上升趋势，从2011年的46.16%升至2018年的57.50%。研究发现老年人的社会经济地位与多病共存之间存在显著关联，表现为社会经济地位越高，患多病共存的可能性越大。然而，两者之间的关系随时间不断变化，社会经济地位对多病共存的影响先逐渐消失，之后又朝相反方向再次出现。多病共存已成为中国老年人不容忽视的关键健康问题，社会经济地位与多病共存之间的关系可能随时间变化，这需要通过更长时间段的数据进一步探究。
