That’s the subject of an attention-grabbing paper by Ho (2023).
Prescription drug use has reached historic highs in the US—a pattern linked to will increase in medicalization, institutional elements regarding the well being care and pharmaceutical industries, and inhabitants getting older and rising burdens of persistent illness. Regardless of the excessive and rising prevalence of use, no estimates exist of the full variety of years People can anticipate to spend taking prescribed drugs over their lifetimes. This research offers the primary estimates of life course patterns of prescription drug use utilizing knowledge from the 1996–2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, the Human Mortality Database, and the Nationwide Middle for Well being Statistics. Newborns in 2019 could possibly be anticipated to take prescribed drugs for roughly half their lives: 47.54 years for girls and 36.84 years for males. The variety of years people can anticipate to take 5 or extra medicine elevated considerably. People additionally skilled significantly dramatic will increase in years spent taking statins, antihypertensives, and antidepressants. There are additionally essential variations in prescription drug use by race and ethnicity: non-Hispanic Whites take essentially the most, Hispanics take the least, and non-Hispanic Blacks fall in between these extremes. People are taking medicine over a large and increasing swathe of the life course, a testomony to the centrality of prescribed drugs in People’ lives immediately.
Hat tip to Kevin Lewis.