Influence of provider and urgent care density across different socioeconomic strata on outpatient antibiotic prescribing in the USA.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Despite a strong link between antibiotic use and resistance, and highly variable antibiotic consumption rates across the USA, drivers of differences in consumption rates are not fully understood. The objective of this study was to examine how provider density affects antibiotic prescribing rates across socioeconomic groups in the USA.

Methods

We aggregated data on all outpatient antibiotic prescriptions filled in retail pharmacies in the USA in 2000 and 2010 from IMS Health into 3436 geographically distinct hospital service areas and combined this with socioeconomic and structural factors that affect antibiotic prescribing from the US Census. We then used fixed-effect models to estimate the interaction between poverty and the number of physician offices per capita

SUBMITTER: Klein EY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4398474 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature