Impact on life and workforce participation
In their own words: experiences of people with multimorbidity
Read comments provided by women to the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health as they describe their experiences living with multimorbidity.
In 2022, adults living with multimorbidity were more likely to:
- perceive their health as ‘fair or poor’ when compared with those with no long term health conditions (28% and 3.2% respectively).
- experienced moderate to very severe bodily pain – 41% of adults with multimorbidity reported moderate to very severe pain, compared with 8.2% of those with no selected long-term health conditions.
Impact on workforce participation
In 2022, the proportion of people aged 18–64 who were working or seeking work was lower among those with multimorbidity (77%) compared with those with no long-term health conditions (87%).
Living with multimorbidity (2 or more long-term health conditions) can have a substantial impact on an individual’s perceived health status, affect their quality of life and have social and economic effects.
Estimates of multimorbidity on this page are from AIHW analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2022 National Health Survey (NHS) (ABS 2023) unless otherwise stated.
The NHS is a community-based survey and does not include information from people living in residential aged care facilities, hospitals or prisons. This will exclude people likely to experience certain long-term health conditions such as dementia and cardiovascular disease.
Estimates are based on analysis of 72 selected long-term health conditions self-reported to the NHS. For more information on the data and conditions included in analysis, see Technical notes.
Analysis on this page is of people aged 18 and over due to the scope of the survey population for the questions asked.
Age-standardised rates are used to remove the influence of age when comparing populations with different age structures. Unless otherwise stated, crude rates are reported, and age-standardised rates are used to inform whether comparisons between population groups are statistically significant.
In their own words: experiences of people with multimorbidity
Below are comments provided by women living with multimorbidity in their responses as part of their participation in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. They describe the impact multimorbidity has across aspects of their lives, including physical, emotional, social and financial consequences.
- “I was forced to retire as a registered nurse because of my limitation. I have had to accept early retirement plus have to pace my activities to be able to control my pain and mobility.”
- “I can never feel well enough to do all the things I would like, which can be frustrating and depressing.”
- “The frustration of being disabled and not being able to do things that you once could do. Loss of independence and having to ask people for help - extremely difficult.”
- “In the last 4 months my physical health has dropped. Where I now need a walker and can no longer do my own shopping.”
- “I would normally work full-time but I have been on leave since June last year due to my weakness, tremor, poor eyesight, fatigue etc.”
(Dobson et al. 2020)
Impact on daily life
The experience of health, disability, restriction or limitation and bodily pain varies with the number of long-term health conditions a person is living with (Figure 14).
Figure 14: Perceived health status of adults by number of long-term health conditions, 2022
This figure shows that poor self-perceived health and the experience of disability, restriction or limitation as well as bodily pain in the past 4 weeks is lowest among those with none of the selected long-term health conditions, increasing among those with one long-term health condition and highest among those with multimorbidity.
Notes:
- For the list of long-term health conditions included in analysis, see Table 1 in the Technical notes.
- For data and footnotes, see Table MM10 in the Data tables.
Self-perceived health
Self-perceived health status is a commonly used measure of overall health which reflects a person's perception of their own health at a given point in time. In 2022, the proportion of adults who self-assessed their health as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ was:
- 3.2% among adults with none of the selected long-term health conditions
- 7.1% among adults living with one selected long-term health condition
- 28% among adults living with multimorbidity (Figure 14).
Disability, restriction or limitation
Disability or a restrictive long-term health condition is defined in the ABS NHS as having at least one condition lasting or expected to last 6 months or more which restricts everyday activities. In 2022, the estimated level of disability, restriction or limitation was:
- 2.0% among adults with none of the selected long-term health conditions
- 8.9% among adults living with one selected long-term health condition
- 41% among adults living with multimorbidity (Figure 14).
Bodily pain
The experience of moderate to severe bodily pain in the previous 4 weeks was estimated to affect:
- 8.2% of adults with none of the selected long-term health conditions
- 19% of adults living with one selected long-term health condition
- 41% of adults living with multimorbidity (Figure 14).
Impact on workforce participation
There are a range of reasons why an individual may not be participating in the workforce (working or seeking work). These include study, engagement in household duties, retirement and other reasons such as living with a chronic condition or disability.
Based on self-reported data from the 2022 NHS, people with multimorbidity were less likely to be working or seeking work than people with no long-term health conditions.
In 2022, the proportion of people aged 18–64 who were working or seeking work was:
- 77% for those with multimorbidity
- 87% for those with none of the selected long-term health conditions (Data table MM11).
This difference is driven by 2 main factors:
- multimorbidity is more common among people aged 45-64 compared with those aged 18–44
- people aged 45–64 with multimorbidity are less likely to be working or seeking work than those aged 18–44 with multimorbidity (Figure 15).
Figure 15: Variation in workforce participation among adults aged 18–64 by long-term health condition status, age group and sex, 2022
This figure shows that workforce participation among adults aged 18 to 64 varies both by age group and sex. Although, in general, those living with multimorbidity are less likely to be working or seeking work than those living with multimorbidity regardless of age or sex.
Notes:
- For the list of long-term health conditions included in analysis, see Table 1 in the Technical notes.
- For data and footnotes, see Table MM11 in the Data tables.
Variation in workforce participation among men
Among men aged 18–64 in 2022, the proportion who were working or seeking work was higher among those with none of the selected long-term health conditions (92%) compared with those living with multimorbidity (79%) (Data table MM11).
The level of workforce participation among men was:
- similar among those aged 18–24 with no long-term health conditions (83%) and with multimorbidity (82%)
- higher among those aged 25–44 with no long-term health conditions (97%) than with multimorbidity (88%)
- higher among those aged 45–64 with no long-term health conditions (91%) than with multimorbidity (72%) (Figure 15).
Variation in workforce participation among women
The proportion of women aged 18–64 in 2022 who were working or seeking work was not significantly different (after adjusting for age) between those with no long-term health conditions (81%) and those living with multimorbidity (75%) (Data table MM11).
The level of workforce participation among women was:
- similar among those aged 18–24 with no long-term health conditions (85%) and with multimorbidity (84%)
- similar among those aged 25–44 with no long-term health conditions and with multimorbidity (83% each)
- higher among those aged 45–64 with no long-term health conditions (76%) than among those with multimorbidity (65%) (Figure 15).
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2023) Microdata: National Health Survey, 2022, AIHW analysis of detailed microdata, accessed 15 February 2025.
Dobson A, Forder P, Hockey R, Egan N, Cavenagh D, Waller M, Xu Z, Anderson A, Byrnes E, Barnes I, Loxton D, Byles J and Mishra G (2020). The impact of multiple chronic conditions: Findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. Report prepared for the Australian Government Department of Health, May 2020.