Educational inequality in multimorbidity: causality and causal pathways. A mendelian randomisation study in UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Multimorbidity, typically defined as having two or more long-term health conditions, is associated with reduced wellbeing and life expectancy. Understanding the determinants of multimorbidity, including whether they are causal, may help with the design and prioritisation of prevention interventions. This study seeks to assess the causality of education, BMI, smoking and alcohol as determinants of multimorbidity, and the degree to which BMI, smoking and alcohol mediate differences in multimorbidity by level of education.

Methods

Participants were 181,214 females and 155,677 males, mean ages 56.7 and 57.1 years respectively, from UK Biobank. We used a Mendelian randomization design; an approach that uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to interrogate caus

SUBMITTER: North TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10463319 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature