Comparison of Health Care Expenditures Among U.S. Older Adults With Pain Who Reported Frequent Exercise Versus Nonfrequent Exercise

Association between Pain and Frequent Physical Exercise among Adults in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Database Study

Pain affects over 20% of United States adults, and less than 50% of United States adults participate in frequent physical exercise. This cross-sectional database study included 13,758 United States adults aged >18 years from the 2020 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and analyzed the association between severity of pain (independent variable) and frequent physical exercise (dependent variable), adjusting for demographic, economic, limitation, and health variables using multivariable logistic regression. The study showed 50.3% of adults report frequently exercising. Only 37.1% of adults reported experiencing pain of any degree, with a majority of them experiencing little pain. In the adjusted model, extreme pain vs. none, quite a bit of pain vs. none, Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic ethnicity, having a functional limitation vs. no limitation, and being overweight/obese vs. not being obese/overweight were associated with lower odds of reporting doing frequent physical exercise. Meanwhile, being ≥65 or 40-64 vs. 18-39 years of age, male vs. female, white vs. not white race, private or public vs. no health coverage, and good vs. poor general health were associated with greater odds of reporting doing frequent physical exercise. These variables associated with frequent physical exercise should be considered in future work when designing health interventions.

Time Series Trend in High BMI and High Out-of-Pocket Expenditure Among Women With Disability

Health with disability is directly related not only to an individual's quality of life but also to national medical finance. This study focuses on trends in BMI and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure of both types of indirect cost exclusion and inclusion. Participants were women with disability (n = 3200) and women without disability (n = 53 082) among adults aged 19 and older from Korea Health Panel from 2009 to 2016. Women with disability had a higher BMI (23.9) than women without disability (22.7), and this time series trend was significant for 8 years (P < .0001). Annual OOP expenditures of both types were higher for women with disability than for women without disability (P < .0001): excluding indirect costs, $518.9 versus $649.4; Including indirect costs, $534.5 versus $681.8. The y-intercept of disability itself and slope of one unit of BMI for both types of annual OOP expenditure is significant (P < 0001): excluding indirect cost, $29.0 and $4.4; including indirect cost, $35.2 versus $4.6. In women with disability, annual OOP expenditure for both types were higher when they were physically inactive (P < .05): excluding indirect cost, $714.1 versus $823.1; including indirect cost, $746.2 versus $880.0. When physical inactivity and overweight and obesity interacted, it increased more than normal weight in dose response manner (P < .05): excluding indirect costs, $799.2 < $800.3 < $886.1; Including indirect costs, $860.2 < $845.9 < $927.5. These results suggest that women with disability are in relatively poor health. It is proposed that inequality of BMI for women with disability can be developed as an agenda from health policy.

Investigating Prescription Medication Expenditures and Level of Perceived Health Status among Older Adults with Pain in the United States

Background: the objective of this retrospective, cross sectional study was to assess the relationship between different levels of perceived health status and prescription medication expenditures among United States adults aged ≥50 years with self-reported pain. Methods: using 2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data, four levels of perceived health status were formed (excellent, very good, good, and fair/poor health). Differences between characteristics in the groups were compared using chi square tests. Adjusted linear regression models, using logged positive annual prescription medication expenditures, were constructed to assess differences in prescription medication expenditures between levels of perceived health. Results: a total of 4826 individuals were included in the study. Adjusted linear regression analysis indicated those who reported excellent health had 65.8% lower annual prescription medication expenditures than those with fair/poor health. Those with very good health had 49.7% lower annual prescription medication expenditures than those with fair/poor health, while those with good health had 27.2% lower annual prescription medication expenditures than those with fair/poor health. Conclusions: better perceived health status was generally associated with relatively lower prescription medication expenditures. Further research is needed to investigate if this pattern is also observed for other categories of healthcare expenditures and in other populations.