UCL researchers have produced the first ‘chronological map of human health’.
Researchers said that the timeline of disease showing which sections of the population are susceptible to which health conditions and at which ages should improve diagnosis and help target research priorities.
For the paper published in The Lancet Digital Health, researchers co-led by Dr Valerie Kuan and Dr Spiros Denaxas analysed the digital health records of 4 million people in England to chart the occurrence of the 50 most common conditions in each decade of life from birth to old age, and the median age at diagnosis for 308 conditions.
Earlier studies attempting to do the same thing suffered from problems such as small or unrepresentative sample sizes.
Key findings were that:
- Hospital-admitted infections affected individuals at the beginning and end of life (<10 years and ≥80 years)
- Allergies were common in childhood (<10 years)
- Mental health disorders were most prevalent from early adulthood (≥20 years)
- Menstrual disorders and migraine were common women of childbearing age (20–49 years)
- Metabolic conditions such as obesity and dyslipidaemia, together with hypertension, increased in prevalence from middle age (≥40 years)
- Cardiovascular diseases emerged later in life (≥60 years), following the surge in metabolic conditions in middle-age
- Degenerative conditions involving the sense organs, musculoskeletal, genitourinary, and neurological systems were prominent in older individuals (≥80 years).
Researchers said the work was possible due to the availability of routinely collected data from the NHS, as a single healthcare system with universal coverage.
The work was the result of a collaboration between the Institute of Health Informatics and Institute of Cardiovascular Science – both at UCL – and the BRC’s HIGODS (Healthcare Informatics, Genomics/Omics and Data Science) and Cardiovascular themes.
Funding also came from the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation.
