Global population ageing has reached unprecedented levels. But for many, living longer means living with increased levels of disease and disability. In Ireland 91% of individuals aged 50+ have ≥1 chronic disease and 75% have ≥2, known as multimorbidity. This demographic ‘greying’ of the population with concomitant increases in older people living with multimorbidity presents a challenge to the sustainability of our healthcare, welfare, and social care systems.
Health and social care reform is currently progressing under the cross-government Sláintecare plan, which will deliver equitable needs-based access to services. Sláintecare implementation requires robust population-level evidence of current and projected need to ensure strategic service planning and delivery to manage soaring multimorbidity. This includes robust forecasts of health care service usage and costs.
The ProjectHealth (Projecting 20-year Multimorbidity trends and their effect on Health Care Usage, Costs and Quality of Life in older Irish adults) research programme will address this knowledge gap with data-based evidence. ProjectHealth will tackle the health and social care challenge of multimorbidity by characterising multimorbidity trajectories; identifying which disease combinations impact on early mortality and quality-of-life and providing projections for service planning and delivery. Co-designed by the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), and the Health Service Executive (HSE), ProjectHealth will use data from TILDA, a study on adults aged 50+ in Ireland, to:
Conduct cutting-edge research into multimorbidity trajectories
Provide 20-year projections of multimorbidity prevalence; health care usage and costs
Investigate how multimorbidity impacts on quality and quantity of life
ProjectHealth will address national and international knowledge gaps in multimorbidity and will directly impact on service and resource planning for the HSE. The outputs of this research will lead the way to determine future studies to develop targeted intervention and prevention strategies for multimorbidity to improve health, wellbeing, and quality of life.