Gout, diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the Aotearoa New Zealand adult population: co-prevalence and implications for clinical practice.

AIMS: To determine the co-prevalence of gout, diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the entire Aotearoa New Zealand adult population to inform clinical practice.

METHODS

Algorithms based on hospital admissions, outpatient visits, drug dispensing, laboratory test data and mortality for the Aotearoa New Zealand Health Tracker (ANZHT) population aged ≥20 years (n = 3,036,093) were used to estimate the prevalence of those identified with gout, diabetes and CVD in 2009.

RESULTS

The crude prevalence in the adult ANZHT population of gout was 3.9%, of diabetes was 6.6%, and of CVD was 5.4%. For those identified with gout, 25.6% had diabetes and 22.7% had CVD. Both diabetes and CVD were more prevalent in those identified with gout, compared with those without gout (age-standardised rate (ASR) ratio 3.5 for diabetes and 2.7 for CVD, p for both <0.001).

CONCLUSION

By applying algorithms based on hospital coding, community drug dispensing and laboratory test data sets, we have demonstrated a high co-prevalence of gout, diabetes and CVD in the adult population of Aotearoa New Zealand. Health service presentation with gout can be an important opportunity to assess risk and manage co-morbid disease. Prevention and management strategies are reinforcing for these metabolic conditions.