HealthJuly 8, 2026
morbidity
/mɔːrˈbɪdəti/
Definition
The state or rate of suffering from a disease or medical condition, or the quality of being unhealthy.
Etymology
Derived from the Latin 'morbidus' (diseased/sickly), which comes from the root 'morbus' meaning 'disease.' It entered English in the 17th century to denote a state of sickness or the relative incidence of a particular disease.
In the news
The article uses 'morbidity' to describe the negative health outcomes that occur when patients undergo ineffective, lengthy trial-and-error antidepressant treatments. Reducing this morbidity is a key goal of the researchers' precision medicine approach.
A precision medicine trial of bupropion and sertraline for major depressive disorder using a biomarker-guided sequential multiple-assignment design
Read the full article ↗Nature