Use of prescribed medicines: a proxy indicator of access and health status

This paper summarizes data on the use of prescribed medicines in the United States in 1977. Likelihood and volume of use by selected demographic characteristics are presented, as well as age-specific rates by condition groups. Differences in prescribed medicine use for 1977 indicate that children from poor and less educated families have a lower likelihood of receiving a prescription than do the better-off in their age group. This difference appears to correspond to levels of physician use, which differed by 20 percent across educational groups, despite the existence of Medicaid which covers medical care costs for eligible poor children. Once poorer children did see a physician, however, there was no difference in the number of prescriptions written for this age group, reflecting similar physician responses to the diseases of childhood regardless of the social class of the patient. For older persons, these differences in access by social class were not observed. Their likelihood of receiving at least one prescription was comparable regardless of income and education. However, the poor and less educated elderly required more prescriptions than the better-off. The likelihood is that the differences in prescribing seen for this age group reflect differences in levels of illness or health status.