Costs of multimorbidity: a systematic review and meta-analyses

Multimorbidity imposes a large economic burden on both the health system and society, most notably for patients with cancer and mental health condition in the first year after cancer diagnosis. Whether the cost of a disease combination is more or less than the additive costs of the component diseases needs to be further explored. Multimorbidity costing studies typically consider only a limited number of disease combinations, and few have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries and Europe. Rigorous and standardized methods of data collection and costing for multimorbidity should be developed to provide more comprehensive and comparable evidence for the costs of multimorbidity.