Chronic Disease, Prescription Medications, and Food Purchases

Diet-related chronic diseases like diabetes can be dangerous and expensive to treat, especially for patients who do not follow a recommended diet. Meanwhile, prescription drugs can alleviate the symptoms of or control many diet-related chronic diseases, but these drugs may also weaken the resolve to follow recommended diets (moral hazard).

We measure the effect of a diagnosis of chronic disease and subsequent pharmacological treatment on the dietary quality of food purchases using a large panel data set of US consumers. We estimate the effect of prescription drug utilization on food purchases for the following chronic diseases: type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, and obesity.

Panelists of the Information Resources, Inc consumer panel.

Dietary quality is measured as purchases of (1) food groups (ie, fruit, vegetables, and sweets) and (2) nutrients (ie, saturated fat, fiber, sodium, sugar, and total calories).

Linear regression with mixed effects on pooled panel (household random effects, city fixed effects).

We do not find strong effects of either diagnosis or pharmacological treatment of diet-related disease on food purchases.