Abstract
The aim of this study is to identify the social determinants of prescription drug use among adults with chronic diseases by examining the associations between socioeconomic position and prescription medicine use and perceived burden for pharmaceutical expenditure, using a sample of the Korean population from the 2008 Korea Health Panel, with 4 analytic models. Controlled with health status and the type of health insurance, the probability of using prescription drugs and overall spending on drugs significantly increased with rising income level, while perceived burden for out-of-pocket payment significantly decreased. These results imply that the poor are likely to underuse prescription drugs compared with their wealthier counterparts with the same need for health care, probably due to economic barriers.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 39-50 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 Jan 1 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by Social Science Korea Program and Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2013S1A3A2052898) and the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (NRF-2014R1A1A3052952), respectively.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health.
Keywords
- South Korea
- chronic disease
- out-of-pocket payment
- perceived burden
- pharmaceutical expenditure
- socioeconomic position
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
