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Table 1 Characteristics of the study population and the median age of the diagnosis of the first two diseases

From: Sex-specific patterns and lifetime risk of multimorbidity in the general population: a 23-year prospective cohort study

 

All participants

(n = 6094)

Men

(n = 2585, 42.4%)

Women

(n = 3509, 57.6%)

p-value for sex differences1

Age (years), median (IQR)

60.8 (57.1–66.7)

60.4 (56.7–65.9)

61.1 (57.3–67.5)

< 0.001

Years of follow-up, median (IQR)

9.2 (7.1–13.4)

9.3 (7.2–12.7)

9.1 (7.0–13.8)

0.58

Marital status

< 0.001

 Living with partner

4619 (80.3%)

2244 (90.4%)

2375 (72.8%)

 

 Living without partner

1127 (19.6%)

239 (9.6%)

888 (27%)

 

Education

< 0.001

 Primary

636 (10.4%)

210 (8%)

426 (14%)

 

 Lower secondary

2462 (40.5%)

703 (30%)

1759 (55%)

 

 Further secondary

1189 (19.5%)

724 (38%)

465 (24%)

 

 Higher

1782 (29.3%)

938 (23%)

844 (7%)

 

Smoking status

< 0.001

 Never

1945 (32.2%)

461 (17.8%)

1484 (42.9%)

 

 Former

2690 (44.5%)

1396 (53.2%)

1294 (37.4%)

 

 Current

1410 (23.0%)

719 (27.9%)

682 (19.7%)

 

Blood pressure (mm Hg), median (IQR)

 

 Systolic

135 (122–148)

136 (124–149)

134 (120–148)

< 0.001

 Diastolic

79 (72–86)

80 (73–87)

78 (71–86)

< 0.001

Ancestry

0.8

 European

5378 (97.9%)

2280 (98.0%)

3098 (97.9%)

 

 East-Asian

63 (1.1%)

28 (1.2%)

35 (1.1%)

 

 African

37 (0.7%)

13 (0.6%)

24 (0.8%)

 

 Admixed

13 (0.2%)

5 (0.2%)

8 (0.3%)

 

Age at diagnosis (years), median (IQR)2

 

 First disease

71.9 (64.5–79.0)

71.0 (64.0–77.6)

72.9 (64.9–80.3)

< 0.001

 Second disease

78.1 (71.8–84.0)

77.0 (71.1–82.7)

79.0 (72.6–84.9)

< 0.001

  1. Key sex differences in the population characteristics are highlighted in bold
  2. IQR interquartile range
  3. Data at baseline were near complete (<3% missing), with the exception of the ancestry characteristic which had 9.8% of missing data (missing data were excluded when calculating the proportions)
  4. 1p-values were calculated using Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum for continuous variables (with the null hypothesis of equal medians) and chi-squared test for categorical variables
  5. 2The values were calculated excluding participants who were censored or died without any diagnosis (for the age at the diagnosis of the first disease) or who were censored or died with only one diagnosis (for the age at the diagnosis of the second disease)
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BMC Medicine

ISSN: 1741-7015

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