For the study, published Dec. 14 in JAMA, researchers looked at the electronic health records and pharmacy data of 6,247 adults with a heart failure diagnosis and cross-referenced that data with the patient’s address. They broke neighborhoods down into quarters based on socioeconomic status and found that 52% of patients living in the lowest socioeconomic quarter did not fill their heart failure prescriptions.
The higher a patient’s socioeconomic living region, the more likely they were to fill their prescriptions.
While the insights revealed this disparity, researchers note that it is just one step of many to begin examining other barriers that may be involved that also prevent more regular prescription refills for patients.
“Now that we have uncovered this disparity at a neighborhood level, we next need to explore additional barriers patients may be facing, such as the cost of medications, language barriers, and discrimination by pharmacy staff,” Samrachana Adhikari, PhD, senior study author stated.
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