Disclosures: Donald Morisky receives a royalty for use of the copyrighted and trademarked MMAS-8.
Funding: Jon Schommer received The PetersInstitute in Pharmacy Practice Innovation, Endowed Chair Award, which was used to fund this project. Findings: Overall adherence rates did not differ significantly between rural and urban adults with average adherence based on MMAS-8 scores of 5.58 and 5.64, respectively (P = .253). Age, income, education, male sex, and white race/ethnicity were associated with higher adherence rates. While the overall adherence rates between urban and rural adults were not significantly different, the factors that influenced adherence varied between age-specific population density groupings.
Conclusion:These analyses suggest that there is no significant difference in adherence between rural and urban populations; however, the factors contributing to medication adherence may vary based on age and population density. Future adherence intervention methods should be designed with consideration for these individualized factors.Key words access to care, health care access, medication adherence, medication use, pharmacy.Medication nonadherence is considered one of the greatest modifiable health risks to exist in the United States. Nearly half of all Americans who are prescribed a prescription medication are nonadherent to it. 1 The presence of nonadherence to prescription medications causes poor health-related outcomes. Nonadherence has been shown to increase the likelihood of disease progression, lead to higher utilization of health care services, increase the cost of care, and cause higher mortality rates.
2-9The cause of nonadherence is complex and there are many factors that have been linked to increasing rates of nonadherence. These include factors related to the cost of the medications, socioeconomic status, and convenience. [10][11][12][13][14][15] With increasing rates of poverty