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KMID : 0387320240340010087
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Korean Journal of Health Policy and Administration
2024 Volume.34 No. 1 p.87 ~ p.93
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Medical Costs between Dietary Supplement Users and Non-users Using the Korea Health Panel Data
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Kwon Hye-Young
Oh Soo-Hyun
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Abstract
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Background: In recent years, studies have shown conflicting results regarding the benefits of dietary supplements in reducing healthcareexpenditures. This study aimed to address this inconsistency by examining the association between supplement consumption and healthexpenditures using nationally representative data from the Korea Health Panel Survey (2019?2020).
Methods: A 1:1 matched case-control dataset was established using propensity score matching technique based on supplementconsumption. Then, total annual healthcare expenditures were compared between the two groups. In addition, a multivariate regressionanalysis (Proc Surveyreg) was performed to determine the association between the supplement consumption and medical costs.
Results: The supplement user group spent about 1.72 million Korean won, while the non-user group spent about 1.43 million Korean won onmedical services (p=0.0186). The results of multivariate regression showed that the costs were approximately 26.15% higher in the user groupthan in the non-user group (p=0.0004).
Conclusion: Contrary to the previous studies that have shown the benefits of supplement use in reducing healthcare costs, this study showedthat those who consistently consumed supplements spent more on medical services. This can be interpreted in the same context as previousstudies suggesting that dietary supplement intake is a healthy behavior for managing one’s health. However, we caution against drawing firmconclusions due to data limitations. Further analysis using patient-level epidemiologic data is needed.
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KEYWORD
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Dietary supplements, Health expenditures, Korea Health Panel Data, Propensity scores
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