The Places in America Where Seniors are Most--and Least--Likely to Take Their Blood Pressure Meds

Your ZIP code can signal a lot about your health — including how consistent you are in taking your pills.

STAT wanted to know: Where in America are people most likely to take their prescription drugs? And where are they least likely?

For a window into these broader patterns, we turned to a 2016 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which looked at 18.5 million seniors taking medication for high blood pressure. The stakes here are high: When patients don’t take these drugs as directed, they’re at elevated risk of having a stroke or heart attack, being hospitalized, and dying early.

The government researchers examined when patients filled and refilled their prescriptions, defining non-adherent patients as those who had access to their medication for fewer than 80 percent of the days after their first fill. (The seniors were all covered by Medicare’s Part D program and the data collected were from 2014.)

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-places-in-ame...