Callaghan Timothy, Motta Matthew, Stein Michael, Goidel Kirby
Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management, Boston University, School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Health Econ Policy Law. 2025 Jan 7:1-14. doi: 10.1017/S1744133124000306.
Ozempic and related semaglutide drugs represent a popular new strategy to address obesity in the United States, yet uptake of these medications has sparked opposition highlighting concerns about off-label drug use policies, drug safety, supply shortages and cost. Public attitudes towards off-label prescribing by physicians broadly, and towards Ozempic in particular, in light of this opposition are unclear. To better understand public sentiment on this topic, we analysed data from a representative survey of 3,420 US adults conducted from 13 to 22 June 2023. Public attitudes towards off-label prescribing were split, with 46.3 percent supporting physician discretion to prescribe off-label. Importantly though, 58 percent of respondents were at least somewhat concerned about Ozempic supply shortages caused by off-label use and 63 percent were concerned about Ozempic safety in the context of off-label use. Further analysis from an embedded survey experiment shows that rhetoric highlighting safety (but not supply) concerns surrounding off-label Ozempic prescribing is associated with a significant drop in support for off-label use. These results suggest that the introduction of obesity drugs like Ozempic present a pharmaceutical industry-led path for combatting obesity, but rhetoric opposing these drugs could blunt public support and uptake.
奥泽美普（Ozempic）及相关的司美格鲁肽药物是美国解决肥胖问题的一种流行新策略，但这些药物的使用引发了反对意见，凸显了对药品标签外使用政策、药物安全性、供应短缺和成本的担忧。鉴于这种反对意见，公众对医生普遍的标签外开药行为，特别是对奥泽美普的态度尚不明朗。为了更好地了解公众对这一话题的看法，我们分析了2023年6月13日至22日对3420名美国成年人进行的一项代表性调查的数据。公众对标签外开药的态度存在分歧，46.3%的人支持医生有标签外开药的自由裁量权。然而，重要的是，58%的受访者至少有点担心标签外使用导致奥泽美普供应短缺，63%的人担心标签外使用情况下奥泽美普的安全性。嵌入式调查实验的进一步分析表明，强调奥泽美普标签外开药安全性（而非供应）担忧的言辞，与对标签外使用的支持率大幅下降有关。这些结果表明，像奥泽美普这样的减肥药的推出为对抗肥胖提供了一条由制药行业主导的途径，但反对这些药物的言辞可能会削弱公众的支持和接受度。
