About 8.2% of American adults aged 18 to 64 who took prescription medications in 2021 reported that they did not take their medications as prescribed because of cost pressures, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Cost-saving strategies such as skipping doses, taking reduced doses, and delaying filling a prescription may make health conditions worse, result in more serious illness, and require additional expensive treatment, and therefore have implications for health and the costs of care,” the report stated.
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The CDC report relied on data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative household survey.
It found that women were more likely to not take their medications as prescribed compared to men. In 2021, 9.1% of women taking prescription drugs did not take their medications correctly, versus 7% of men.
There were also differences by race, the CDC showed. About 10.4% of Black adults did not take their medications as prescribed because of costs, compared to 9.7% of Hispanic adults, 7.4% of White adults, 6.8% of Asian adults and 11.5% of adults of other races.
In addition, adults with disabilities were almost three times as likely to not take their medication as prescribed because of costs than adults without disabilities (20% versus 7.1%), according to the CDC. Among adults in “excellent, very good or good health,” 6.3% did not take their medication as prescribed, compared to 18% of those in “fair or poor health.”
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At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
Additional findings from the report include:
- The percentage of adults not taking their medications as prescribed to reduce costs was significantly higher for those with lower family incomes than those with higher family incomes.
- About 22.9% of uninsured adults did not take their medications as prescribed, versus 8% of adults on Medicaid, 6.5% of adults with private insurance and 11.4% of adults with other forms of health insurance coverage.
- Adults with no prescription drug coverage were much more likely to report not taking their medications correctly because of costs, at 18.1%, compared to 7.6% of adults with public prescription drug coverage and 6.6% of those with private prescription drug coverage.
- There were no significant differences when broken down by age group.
In 2021, more than 60% of adults aged 18 and older were taking at least one prescription medication and 36% were taking three or more.
Photo: cagkansayin, Getty Images
