Investigation of social, demographic and health variations in the usage of prescribed and over-the-counter medicines within a large cohort (South Yorkshire, UK).
OBJECTIVE
Prescribed and over-the-counter (non-prescribed) medicine usage has increased in recent years; however, there has been less investigation of the socioeconomic predictors of use. This has been due to a lack of data, especially for over-the-counter medicines. Our study aims to understand how prescribed and over-the-counter medicine patterns vary by demographic, social and health characteristics within a large population cohort.


METHODS
Cross-sectional data analysis.


METHODS
South Yorkshire, UK.


METHODS
27 806 individuals from wave 1 of the Yorkshire Health Study (2010-2012).


METHODS
Individuals self-reported each medicine they were taking and whether each was prescribed or not. The medicines were grouped into 14 categories (eg, cardiovascular system, infection, contraception). Negative binomial regression models were used to analyse the count of medicine usage. We included demographic (age, gender, ethnicity), social (education), health-related (body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity) factors and chronic health conditions (eg, stroke, anxiety and heart disease) in our analyses.


RESULTS
49% of men and 62% of women were taking medicine with the majority of this prescribed (88% and 83%, respectively). Health conditions were found to be positively associated with prescribed medicine usage, but mixed in their associated with over-the-counter medicines. Educational attainment was negatively associated with prescribed and positively associated with over-the-counter usage.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study addresses a dearth of evidence to provide new insights into how behaviours in medicine usage vary by demographic, social and health-related factors. Differences in over-the-counter medicine usage by educational attainment may help our understanding of the determinants of health inequalities.
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Mark A
MA
Green
School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Emma
E
Little
School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Richard
R
Cooper
School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Clare
C
Relton
School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Mark
M
Strong
EPIDEMIOLOGY; PUBLIC HEALTH; SOCIAL MEDICINE
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