Prescription drug use over a lifetime – Healthcare Economist

That’s the subject of an attention-grabbing paper by Ho (2023).

Prescription drug use has reached historic highs in america—a development linked to will increase in medicalization, institutional components regarding the well being care and pharmaceutical industries, and inhabitants growing older and rising burdens of power illness. Regardless of the excessive and rising prevalence of use, no estimates exist of the overall variety of years Individuals can anticipate to spend taking pharmaceuticals over their lifetimes. This research supplies the primary estimates of life course patterns of prescription drug use utilizing information from the 1996–2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, the Human Mortality Database, and the Nationwide Middle for Well being Statistics. Newborns in 2019 might be anticipated to take pharmaceuticals for roughly half their lives: 47.54 years for girls and 36.84 years for males. The variety of years people can anticipate to take 5 or extra medicine elevated considerably. Individuals additionally skilled significantly dramatic will increase in years spent taking statins, antihypertensives, and antidepressants. There are additionally vital variations in prescription drug use by race and ethnicity: non-Hispanic Whites take probably the most, Hispanics take the least, and non-Hispanic Blacks fall in between these extremes. Individuals are taking medicine over a large and increasing swathe of the life course, a testomony to the centrality of pharmaceuticals in Individuals’ lives at the moment.

Hat tip to Kevin Lewis.