An Interactive Visualization Tool for Medication (Re)fill Adherence: A Case Study of Pharmacy Claims-derived Adherence Measures in Asthmatics

While many studies have examined reasons for poor adherence to drug labeling instructions, there is a lack of research into the characteristics of individuals who stop taking their medication after an initial fill. We designed an interactive visualization tool (IVT) for showing trends in medication adherence across medication types and insurance types. The IVT was validated by showing results consistent with trends of previous studies indicating decreases in asthma medication fill rates in the summer between peak rates in the spring and fall across multiple sexes, insurance types, and ages. This drop-off is greater for inhaled corticosteroid fills than for leukotriene modifiers, which was also previously observed. Having an IVT enables rapidly visualizing more targeted populations and may show new insights. For example, there appears to be a similar degree of drop-off in medication fills for different sexes, but not for different age groups. We believe that the use of this tool may help guide new research directions as illustrated in our case study visualizing asthma medication adherence.