NCD Brief Eleven – Compounding the complexity

Compounding the complexity: The impact of comorbidities on the management of non-communicable diseases

Percept | January 2022

This brief focuses on the comorbidity and multimorbidity of chronic conditions. For our purposes, we
define comorbidity as an individual having two chronic conditions at the same time, and multimorbidity
as an individual having more than two chronic conditions at the same time. We use the term chronic
conditions, rather than non-communicable diseases (NCDs), to include HIV, which is a communicable
disease but also chronic. We don’t include medium-duration conditions like tuberculosis (TB) in our
definition of comorbidity, as TB is curable. Therefore, this brief looks at long-term, chronic conditions
that need to be managed using both medical, behavioural, and/or social interventions for the
remainder of a person’s life.