HEALTH POLL: Prescription Drugs

Every other month, the Truven Health Analytics®-NPR Health Poll surveys approximately 3,000 Americans to gauge attitudes and opinions on a wide range of healthcare issues. Poll results are reported by NPR on the health blog Shots (npr.org/sections/health-shots/) and on air. The Truven Health Analytics-NPR Health Poll is powered by the Truven Health Analytics PULSE® Healthcare Survey, an independently funded multi-modal (land line, cell phone, internet) survey that collects information from approximately 80,000 US households annually. The results depicted here represent responses from 3,003 survey participants interviewed from June 1 – 15, 2017. The margin of error is +/-1.8 percentage points

Given the amount of money spent on retail prescription drugs in the US ($324.6 billion in 2015 ), the Truven Health Analytics-NPR Health Poll asked Americans about their experiences with and attitudes toward prescription drugs and drug pricing. While 97% of respondents who received a prescription for medication in the last 90 days filled it, the most cited reason by respondents who did not fill their prescription was cost (67%), and 12% of all respondents said that cost drove them to purchase prescription medication outside the US. 

The full results can be viewed below.