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.