Socioeconomic Predictors and Cost of Comorbidity Among Indian Population: A Case of Diabetes and Hypertension

Abstract

With changing demography and the increasing burden of chronic diseases comorbidity is becoming a major public health concern. Among various co-occurring disease combinations, diabetes and hypertension are the two most fatal combinations often increasing the risk of multimorbidity, complexity, and cost of treatment. Therefore, this study intends to estimate the prevalence of comorbidity in India and across various socioeconomic groups to identify the higher-risk population. We further analysed the economic burden associated with comorbid conditions of diabetes and hypertension in particular. This is a cross-sectional study that uses Unit-Level data from the NSSO-75 round (2017–2018). The marginal effect using the logit model is calculated to identify the higher-risk population for the prevalence of comorbidity across socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The cost of treatment is calculated through descriptive statistics. The prevalence of comorbid diabetes and hypertension is 2.06% in India. Heart disease, goiter and thyroid, joint pain, bronchial asthma, and gastric peptic ulcer are the common combinations prevailing among patients with diabetes and hypertension together. Results suggest that the elderly and women are at higher risk of comorbidity. Education and higher economic status are positively associated with it. The cost of treatment increases with comorbidity, and medicine constitutes almost 83.2% of the total medical cost among patients with diabetes and hypertension.