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Syndemic thinking to address multimorbidity and its structural determinants

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The concept of syndemics specifies which, where and how disease concentrations and interactions emerge and persist. Recognizing multimorbidity within a population or region is fundamental to syndemics because multimorbid conditions often share upstream drivers, including social inequalities. Applying syndemics to health care can inform clinical and policy interventions.

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Fig. 1: The syndemic model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Justin Dixon

  2. Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    Emily Mendenhall

Authors
  1. Justin Dixon
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  2. Emily Mendenhall
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Correspondence to Justin Dixon or Emily Mendenhall.

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Competing interests

E.M. received a stipend from Elsevier for her role as Editor-in-Chief of SSM-Mental Health.

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Dixon, J., Mendenhall, E. Syndemic thinking to address multimorbidity and its structural determinants. Nat Rev Dis Primers 9, 23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-023-00437-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-023-00437-2

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