Professor Mair is the Norie Miller Professor of General Practice, Head of the School of Health and Wellbeing and Director of a Wellcome funded Multimorbidity PhD Programme for Health Professionals at the University of Glasgow.  She is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, ranking in the top 1% of researchers in her field based on citations.  She undertakes mixed methods research focusing on optimising the care of people with chronic illness and multimorbidity and the potential of digital health.  She holds visiting Professorships at the Universities of Liverpool, Southampton and Melbourne. 

Multimorbidity Challenges
Multimorbidity also known as multiple long-term conditions (MLTCs) refers to the co-occurrence of >2 long-term conditions (LTCs). It is a growing global public health problem causing reduced life expectancy, more complex healthcare needs, higher healthcare utilisation, poorer quality of life and higher mortality. Multimorbidity increases in prevalence with age but also exists in children and young people and is associated with lifelong impacts on individuals, families, health, and social services.   Multimorbidity occurs a decade earlier in more socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Socioeconomic inequalities are a major factor in development of multimorbidity and contribute to poorer outcomes.   People with multimorbidity experience higher levels of treatment burden (defined as the self-management demands or work that healthcare systems and professionals impose upon patients and their caregivers and the impact this has on wellbeing). Our single disease focused healthcare systems and disease centred guidelines, often fail to take sufficient account of comorbidity, and can exacerbate burden of treatment for patients and their supporters.  Multimorbidity is complex and linked to multiple biological, lifestyle, and social factors across the life-course. We know insufficient about its underpinning mechanisms, prevention and management. Multimorbidity poses challenges for both healthcare delivery and research.  Digital innovations have potential to help but may exacerbate inequalities and add to burden of treatment.  This talk will address these challenges.