Use of Prescribed Medications in the United States 

Mykata and Cohen (2023) used data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey to evaluate compliance with prescription medication by adults between 18 and 64 years of age. Specifically, study participants who reported being prescribed medication in the past year were asked, “During the last 12 months, are any of the following true for you? (1) You skipped medication doses to save money; (2) You took less medication to save money; and (3) You delayed filling a prescription to save money?” 

While these investigators estimated that less than 10 percent of adults altered their medication use due to costs, they did find significant differences in compliance based on certain factors. Differences in demographic and socioeconomic factors, health status, insured status, and prescription drug coverage, led to varying “cost-saving” measures of altering the taking of medication as prescribed.

Of particular interest to audiologists is that adults with disabilities (20 percent) were significantly more likely modify their medication use than those without (7.1 percent). Hearing function (“even with hearing aids”) was included as one of the six questions examining disability status. If a participant reported “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all” on any of the six questions, they were labeled as having a disability for the purpose of these analyses. 

Interested readers are referred to the full report in the reference below.  

Reference

Mykyta L, Cohen RA. (2023) Characteristics of adults aged 18–64 who did not take medication as prescribed to reduce costs: United States, 2021. NCHS Data Brief, no 470. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.