The research will examine the risk of multimorbidity (the co-occurrence of multiple diseases in one person) among children and adolescents in the Nordic countries, and whether multimorbidity differs between children who were born too soon (preterm) or too small (with a lower than expected birth weight), in comparison to those born at term or with a normal birth weight. The novelty and impact of the work derive from an innovative analyses in whole-population data from 11 million children and adolescents in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. These will enable the researchers to identify novel risk and protective factors for multimorbidity among children and adolescents, as well as ways in which multimorbidity in childhood or adolescence can impact on health, working life and societal outcomes during transition to adulthood.

2024

2028