• Chen Chen, Yihao Zhao, Yu Wu, Panliang Zhong, Binbin Su, and Xiaoying Zheng.
• Department of Population Health and Aging Science, School of Population Medicine and Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. Electronic address: chencnavy@163.com.
• Am J Prev Med. 2024 Apr 1; 66 (4): 735743735-743.

IntroductionAs one of the world's most populous countries, China persistently confronts a significant multimorbidity burden. This study aimed to elucidate the multimorbidity burden experienced by Chinese older adults, explore its interplay with socioeconomic disparity, and investigate potential correlations between these provincial disparities and health services availability.MethodsThe fourth wave of China's national Urban and Rural Elderly Population study, conducted in 2015, was used to construct a multimorbidity index and elucidate the geographic differences in the multimorbidity burden. Incorporating macrolevel indicators about socioeconomic and health services availability, quantile regression and Spearman correlation analyses were employed to investigate the relationship between multimorbidity and socioeconomic disparities and examine the potential linkages between these provincial disparities and health services availability. Analyses were performed in 2023.ResultsThe final analysis included a total of 213,857 older adults. At the provincial level, significant geographic disparities in multimorbidity burden were identified. After adjusting for individual social determinants of health, an independent association was found between the human development index and a higher multimorbidity index (coefficient= -0.22; 95% CI= -0.24, -0.19). Furthermore, a significant positive correlation emerged between human development index and both population and geographic densities of health services availability. Notably, geographic density displayed greater inequality (Gini coefficients=0.45-0.48) than population density (Gini coefficients=0.03-0.10).ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that multimorbidity burden in China is linked to provincial socioeconomic disparities and that inequality in health services availability may account for this, which would advocate for a need to reduce disparities in health services availability.Copyright © 2024 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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