ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2018
Multimorbidity and Physical and Cognitive Function: Performance of a New Multimorbidity-Weighted Index.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- How to assess multimorbidity: a systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Association of Sustained Blood Pressure Control with Multimorbidity Progression Among Older Adults.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2020Trial
- Evaluating the impacts of critical time intervention implementation on health service utilization among homeless-experienced veterans: a retrospective observational study.BMC health services research · 2026Observational
- Validating ICD code case definitions for condition case ascertainment in multimorbidity measurement: a retrospective chart review.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Comorbidities and comorbidity burden in patients with neurocognitive disorders: findings from the MEMORA Cohort Study.European geriatric medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Longitudinal Trajectories of Multimorbidity and Psychosocial Resilience Resources in Midlife and Older Adults: Findings From the Health and Retirement Study.Journal of aging and health · 2025Article
- Burden of multimorbidity and verbal phonemic fluency in cognitively healthy and mildly impaired older adults: findings from a real-world study.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Article
- Exposures and conditions prior to age 16 are associated with incidence of dementia status among adults in the United States Health and Retirement Study.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2025Article
- Investigating the role of chronic stress and perceived discrimination in racial disparities in incident dementia among U.S. older adults.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Dynamics of multimorbidity, health expectancy, and survival in middle aged and older individuals.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Prospective association between plasma amino acids and three Multimorbidity patterns in older adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- DNA methylation age acceleration is associated with incident cognitive impairment in the health and retirement study.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2025Article
- Health octo tool matches personalized health with rate of aging.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Diabetes Complications Among Community-Based Health Center Patients with Varying Multimorbidity Patterns.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Association between comorbidity indices and nursing home admission in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal observational study using the MEMORA cohort.BMC geriatrics · 2025Observational
- Capturing the care of complex community-based health center patients: A comparison of multimorbidity indices and clinical classification software.Health services research · 2025Article
- Higher than expected telemedicine use by racial and ethnic minority and cognitively impaired Medicare beneficiaries.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Higher-Order Disease Interactions in Multimorbidity Measurement: Marginal Benefit Over Additive Disease Summation.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2024Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Background: Multimorbidity is an important health outcome but is difficult to quantify. We recently developed a multimorbidity-weighted index (MWI) and herein assess its performance in an independent nationally-representative cohort. Methods: Health and Retirement Study (HRS) participants completed an interview on physician-diagnosed chronic conditions and physical functioning. We determined the relationship of chronic conditions on physical functioning and validated these weights with the original, independently-derived MWI. We then determined the association between MWI with physical functioning, grip strength, gait speed, basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL/IADL) limitations, and the modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS-m) in adjusted models. Results: Among 20,509 adults, associations between chronic conditions and physical functioning varied several-fold. MWI values based on weightings in the HRS and original cohorts correlated strongly (Pearson's r = .92) and had high classification agreement (κ statistic = .80, p < .0001). Participants in the highest versus lowest MWI quartiles had weaker grip strength (-2.91 kg, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -3.51, -2.30), slower gait speed (-0.29 m/s, 95% CI: -0.35, -0.23), more ADL (0.79, 95% CI: 0.71, 0.87) and IADL (0.49, 95% CI: 0.44, 0.55) limitations, and lower TICS-m (-0.59, 95% CI: -0.77, -0.41) (all p < .001). We observed monotonic graded relationships for all outcomes with increasing MWI quartiles. Conclusion: A multimorbidity index weighted to physical functioning performed nearly identically in a nationally-representative cohort as it did in its development cohorts, confirming broad generalizability. MWI was strongly associated with subjective and objective physical and cognitive performance. Thus, MWI serves as a valid patient-centered measure of multimorbidity, an important construct in research and clinical practice.
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