Posted on April 24, 2007 at 11:00 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Nearly 6 million U.S. stroke survivors require medications to modify risk factors and prevent a secondary stroke. Yet, UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) researchers estimate that more than 76,000 of them may not receive proper care because they are unable to afford their prescriptions.

Researchers at UAB found that nearly 10 percent of stroke survivors are unable to afford medications. Using statistics from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), researchers assessed medication access and associated barriers to care. The percentage of stroke survivors who are unable to afford medication increased overall throughout the duration of the study. To make matters worse, stroke survivors unable to afford medications also faced other barriers to care, such as lack of health insurance, no transportation to care, an annual household income less than $20,000, out-of-pocket medical expenses exceeding $2,000 and no regular place of care.

“We identified a vulnerable stroke survivor population with reduced access to medications and increased barriers to medical care,” said Deborah Levine, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at UAB and principle investigator on this study. “Unfortunately, this population has increased substantially over the last decade. We feel that clinicians caring for stroke survivors need to incorporate medication affordability into their medical decision-making regarding risk factor modification interventions.”

According to Levine, additional research is needed to understand the issue and to identify effective methods of providing easier access to necessary medications.

The study was published online for early access and will be published in the May edition of Stroke, the Journal of the American Heart Association. For more, visit http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/STROKEAHA.106.478545v1.