3.6 percent did not get prescription medications due to cost; 3.4 percent did not take medication as prescribed due to cost
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Sept. 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) — About 3.5 percent of older adults do not take prescription medications due to cost and a similar percentage do not take medications as prescribed due to cost, according to a study published online Sept. 5 in the National Health Statistics Reports, a publication from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Robin A. Cohen, Ph.D., and Laryssa Mykyta, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, examined prescription medication use, prescription drug coverage, and cost-related nonadherence among adults aged 65 years and older using data from the 2021 to 2022 National Health Interview Survey.
The researchers found that 88.6 percent of older adults took prescription medication in 2021 to 2022 and 82.7 percent had prescription drug coverage; 3.6 and 3.4 percent did not get needed prescription medication due to cost and did not take medication as prescribed due to cost, respectively. Compared with older adults with private or public prescription drug coverage, older adults with no prescription drug coverage were more likely to not get prescription medication and to not take needed medication as prescribed due to cost. Cost-related nonadherence for both measures was six times higher for older adults who were food-insecure versus food-secure and more than two times higher for older adults reporting fair or poor health or with disabilities versus those in excellent, very good, or good health or without disabilities.
“While this report presents unadjusted estimates of prescription drug use and coverage and two measures of cost-related nonadherence, it highlights differences in each of these outcomes by sociodemographic and health characteristics,” the authors write.
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