Lay summary
A recent epidemiological has shown that chronic disease and multimorbidity to be common for people aged 65 years or older. Multimorbidity has extremely poor outcomes such as reduced quality of life and increased mortality. The Maori and Pacific populations have the greatest prevalence of chronic diseases and are thus are highly susceptible to multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Extrapolating from a Scottish study, it is likely that these two populations experience multimorbidity and polypharmacy at an earlier age than NZ Europeans. The current study aims to determine the prevalence of multimorbidity and polypharmacy with respect to age, deprivation and ethnicity and to explore the relationship between multimorbidity and polypharmacy.