Women more likely to skip, delay or take less medication than men

Women are more likely than men to skip, delay or take less medication than was prescribed because of cost, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

The finding came from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey, an annual survey in which tens of thousands of people in the U.S. are asked questions about their health-related experiences.

In 2021, 9.2 million individuals ages 18 to 64 - about 1 in 10 - reported skipping, delaying or using less medication than prescribed over the past year to save money. Women led men when it came to nonadherence: 9.1% versus 7%.

I was not surprised by the findings, but they are disheartening, said Robin Feldman, a pharmaceutical and intellectual property law specialist at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. In the face of financial or time pressures, they may make their own health a lower priority, Feldman said.

The gender gap could also be due to the fact that women under 65 are more likely to be on medication than men, said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

In addition, Dusetzina said, women tend to have lower incomes than men. Don't taking medication as prescribed can cause health conditions to worsen, result in more serious illness and lead to additional expensive treatment, said Eric Tichy, a pharmacist and division chair of pharmacy supply solutions at the Mayo Clinic. It's a cycle. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adults aged 18 to 64 in the U.S. take at least one prescription drug.

The CDC survey also found that adults with disabilities were more likely than adults without disabilities to skip, delay, or take less medication to lower expenses. In a good or poor health, people were almost threefold more likely to do so than those in excellent or very good health.

In addition, adults without insurance were more likely than those with insurance to not take their medication because of the cost, as did Black and nonwhite Hispanic adults compared with white and Asian adults.

Robin Cohen, a CDC statistician and co-author of the study, said the report does not look at what prescriptions people are taking or for what conditions. However, it also looked at people who did not adhere to the drugs because of the cost.

So there are other reasons that people don't take medication as prescribed, but we don't evaluate them, she said, noting that there may be other reasons that people don't take medication as prescribed.

Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed last year, aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs for people in the United States, but most savings will likely go toward adults over the age of 65, said Inma Hernandez, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Hernandez said it is possible that a provision in a law that penalizes drugmakers that raise the prices of the drugs faster than inflation could help adults under 65. It is possible there are some spillover effects, she said.

In the meantime, he said, more may need to be done. Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor, launched Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. last year, offering some generic drugs at reduced prices. California is also planning to make its own low-cost insulin. The company will partner with Civica Rx, a nonprofit generic drug company.

It's a lot to be done to bring sanity to drug prices, he said.