Cawley John, Rizzo John A
Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Adv Health Econ Health Serv Res. 2007;17:149-83.
The doubling of obesity in the U.S. over the last 25 years has led policymakers and physicians to encourage weight loss, but few methods of weight loss are effective. One promising avenue is pharmacotherapy. However, little is known about the use of anti-obesity drugs. This paper describes the market for anti-obesity drugs and studies the utilization of anti-obesity drugs using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for 1996-2002, a period that is interesting because it covers the introduction of three, and the withdrawal of two, anti-obesity drugs from the market. Our results point to wide sociodemographic disparities in anti-obesity drug use. Women are almost 200% more likely than men to use anti-obesity drugs. Hispanics and African-Americans are only 39% as likely as Whites to use them. Those with prescription drug coverage are 46% more likely to use anti-obesity drugs. We also find that the vast majority of subjects who are approved to take these drugs are not taking them, and a significant number who are not approved to take the drugs are taking them. We find strong evidence that the well-publicized 1997 withdrawal of fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine had a chilling effect on the overall market for anti-obesity drugs. We find little difference in observed characteristics between those who took the withdrawn drugs and those who took the other anti-obesity drugs in the market.
在过去25年里，美国肥胖率翻了一番，这促使政策制定者和医生鼓励人们减肥，但几乎没有什么减肥方法是有效的。一个有前景的途径是药物治疗。然而，人们对减肥药的使用知之甚少。本文描述了减肥药市场，并利用1996 - 2002年医疗支出小组调查的数据研究了减肥药的使用情况，这一时期很有意思，因为它涵盖了三种减肥药进入市场以及两种减肥药退出市场的情况。我们的研究结果表明，在减肥药的使用上存在广泛的社会人口统计学差异。女性使用减肥药的可能性几乎比男性高出200%。西班牙裔和非裔美国人使用减肥药的可能性仅为白人的39%。有处方药保险的人使用减肥药的可能性高出46%。我们还发现，绝大多数被批准服用这些药物的受试者并未服用，而大量未被批准服用这些药物的人却在服用。我们发现有力的证据表明，1997年芬氟拉明和右芬氟拉明的退市被广泛宣传，这对减肥药整体市场产生了寒蝉效应。我们发现，服用已退市药物的人和服用市场上其他减肥药的人在观察到的特征上几乎没有差异。
