Background: National surveys offer diverse opportunities for health outcomes, pharmacoepidemiology, and pharmacy practice researchers to perform real-world observational studies. Most of the national survey data are publicly available.
Objectives: This study aims 1) to assess national survey data use in articles published in 3 pharmacy journals 2) to classify articles by type of national survey used and research question answered.
Methods: We identified all articles published between January 2020 and December 2024 in the Journal of the American Pharmacist Association (JAPhA), Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP), and Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety (PDS) that used national surveys. Articles were assessed by 2 reviewers and a decision for inclusion was made via consensus. Included articles were analyzed to identify the national survey used, the research question addressed, the country of origin, and the sample size.
Results: A total of 41 articles published between 2020-2024 used national surveys as the data source. These were: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) (n=13), other (n=13), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (n=5), National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) (n=4), National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) (n=2), American Community Survey (ACS) (n=1), Medicare Beneficiary Survey (n=1), and National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) (n=1). The studies addressed the following research questions: evaluation of prescribing patterns (n=9), costs (n=7), sociodemographic factors (n=6), co-prescribing patterns (n=6), adherence (n=4), healthcare services utilization patterns (n=3), methodology (n=2), adverse events (n=2), error reporting (n=1), health policy (n=1). The sample size varied between 316 and 520,100 patients. These surveys originated from 10 countries with the top one being the U.S. (n=30).
Conclusions: National surveys provide readily available real-world data for health outcomes, pharmacoepidemiology, and pharmacy practice research. The most frequently used national survey in this study was MEPS. Surveys like NHATS, NHIS, and ACS were underutilized despite their potential for valuable insights.
