• Lafferty L

• Abnormalities, Drug-Induced
• Direct-to-Consumer Advertising
• Malnutrition
• Nonprescription Drugs
• Prescription Drugs
• Proton Pump Inhibitors
• United States. Food and Drug Administration

Prescription drug use in the U.S has increased dramatically since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved changes in direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising regulation in 1997.  DTC drug advertisements have been linked with considerable increases in drug expenditures.  While in 1995 the prescription drug spending amount accounted for 6.3 percent (or $56 billion) of total health expenditures, in 2016 prescription drugs made up 10 percent (or $329 billion) of health spending.  Previous studies investigated the overall use of prescription drugs among US adults and found a significant increase in the percentage of the US adults self-reported using of any prescription drugs from 51% to 59% between 1999/2000 and 2011/2012, respectively.  The prevalence of polypharmacy (defined by the use of > 5 prescription drugs) increased from an estimated 8.2% in 1999-2000 to 15% in 2011-2012.  This, increases in overall spending on prescription drugs due to advances in new products, number of people using prescription drugs as well as number of prescriptions per user, has contributed to the growth in Medicaid spending that grew by 18 percent between 1997 and 2000.  Further, as more prescription drugs are switched to nonprescription, OTC medications have also sharply risen.  A report from the Consumer Healthcare Products Association showed that the number of OTC drugs sold doubled in the U.S. from 2008 to 2014.

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