Findings in the Area of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy Reported from University of Utah (Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Medication Class Determinants of Medication Adherence: a Retrospective Cohort Study): Drugs and Therapies – Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy

2026 APR 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Drugs and Therapies - Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy. According to news originating from Salt Lake City, Utah, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Medication adherence varies across socioeconomic and demographic groups. Prior work has examined these relationships in selected populations and with zip code-level socioeconomic measures, but less is known about adherence patterns across all medications when using more granular community measures and location proxies.”

Financial support for this research came from University of Utah ReImagine EHR initiative.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Utah, “To quantify associations between socioeconomic, demographic, and medication class factors and outpatient medication adherence. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 1,252,986 outpatient medication orders for 189,832 adults placed at a large health system in the Mountain West (University of Utah Health) from January 1, 2022, to January 1, 2024. Pharmacy, electronic health record, and Surescripts data were used. Medication adherence (proportion of days covered) was modeled with multivariate beta regression with covariates including insurance, race, sex, marital and employment status, medication class, and Social Vulnerability Index socioeconomic quartile. Medicaid (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.87, P< 0.001) or no insurance (aOR = 0.80, P< 0.001) were associated with lower adherence than commercial coverage, whereas Medicare was associated with improved adherence (aOR = 1.06, P< 0.001, when compared with commercial insurance). Black, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native patients had lower adherence compared with White patients (aOR = 0.93, P< 0.001 and aOR = 0.96, P< 0.001, respectively). The most vulnerable Social Vulnerability Index quartile (Q4) modestly reduced adherence (aOR = 0.98, P< 0.001) compared with Q1. Antihypertensive, cholesterol-lowering, antidepressant, and heart failure drugs had markedly higher adherence (aORs 1.35-1.60, P< .01, when compared with other medication classes). Several individual-level factors had strong associations with adherence.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Community-level socioeconomic vulnerability had a modest association.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Medication Class Determinants of Medication Adherence: a Retrospective Cohort Study. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, 2026;32(2):218-229. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy can be contacted at: Acad Managed Care Pharmacy, 100 N Pitt St, 400, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Kensaku Kawamoto, University of Utah, Dept. of Biomedical Informatics, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, United States. Additional authors for this research include Nikolay Lukyanchikov, Joshua S. Choi, Phillip B. Warner, Claude J. Nanjo, Guilherme Del Fiol and T. Joseph Mattingly II.

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