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Home / Our research / Determinants of health and inequalities research / Health and multi-morbidity / Multimorbidity in autistic people and people with learning disabilities

Multimorbidity in autistic people and people with learning disabilities

Background

A multimorbidity index is a list of conditions that assigns a score to a patient based on the conditions they have. This score is then used to predict deterioration in the patient. There is a large variety of multimorbidity indices available, but all are based on information from the general population. Research has shown that the physical and mental health conditions commonly experienced by autistic people or people with learning disabilities are different from those in the general population. In addition, general health, multimorbidity and premature mortality have been shown to be worse in autistic people and people with learning disabilities as compared to the general population.

What we did

Using data from the British Heart Foundation COVID consortium spanning the whole population of England, we investigated what the differences are between patterns of physical and mental health conditions experienced by autistic people and people with learning disabilities as compared to the general population. Based on these differences, we aim to determine whether there is a need for adjustment of specific tools, such as a multimorbidity index to predict patient deterioration, for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

What we found

We are currently in the process of analysing the data. We will update this webpage once results are finalised.

For further information on this research, please contact Dewy Nijhof

An easy read version is available here.

Page updated 10 January 2023