Study Results from University of Memphis Update Understanding of Health Economics (Determinants of US Prescription Drug Utilization using County…

Study Results from University of Memphis Update Understanding of Health Economics (Determinants of US Prescription Drug Utilization using County Level Data)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Week -- Researchers detail new data in Health and Medicine. According to news reporting originating from Memphis, Tennessee, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, "Prescription drugs are the third largest component of US healthcare expenditures. The 2006 Medicare Part D and the 2010 Affordable Care Act are catalysts for further growths in utilization becuase of insurance expansion effects."

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Memphis, "This research investigating the determinants of prescription drug utilization is timely, methodologically novel, and policy relevant. Differences in population health status, access to care, socioeconomics, demographics, and variations in per capita number of scripts filled at retail pharmacies across the USA justify fitting separate econometric models to county data of the states partitioned into low, medium, and high prescription drug users. Given the skewed distribution of per capita number of filled prescriptions (response variable), we fit the variance stabilizing Box-Cox power transformation regression models to 2011 county level data for investigating the correlates of prescription drug utilization separately for low, medium, and high utilization states. Maximum likelihood regression parameter estimates, including the optimal Box-Cox power transformations, differ across high (=0.214), medium (=0.942), and low (=0.302) prescription drug utilization models."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The estimated income elasticities of -0.634, 0.031, and -0.532 in high, medium, and low utilization models suggest that the economic behavior of prescriptions is not invariant across different utilization levels."

For more information on this research see: Determinants of US Prescription Drug Utilization using County Level Data. Health Economics, 2016;25(5):606-619. Health Economics can be contacted at: Wiley-Blackwell, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Health Economics - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1050)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting T. Nianogo, University of Memphis, Dept. of Math & Stat, Memphis, TN 38152, United States. Additional authors for this research include A. Okunade, D. Fofana and W.W. Chen (see also Health and Medicine).

Keywords for this news article include: Memphis, Tennessee, United States, North and Central America, Health and Medicine, University of Memphis.

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