Noncompliance — An Infographic on High Blood Pressure Medication Compliance
Special Issue: High Blood Pressure
Illustration - Katy Doughty
Half of U.S. patients with high blood pressure don’t take their medication consistently. Black Americans are 1.8 times more likely to miss their meds compared to white people.
When this happens, the patient is branded NONADHERENT or NONCOMPLIANT. These catch-all labels can write patients off as lost causes. They place the blame on the patient’s shoulders, while glazing over the circumstances and reasons behind their behavior. Maybe they struggled to understand the medication label…or can’t afford refills and have to ration pills…or suffer from depression…or weren’t counseled by the doctor.
125,000 DEATHS from cardiovascular disease every year could be prevented in part by regular medication use.
With numbers like these, it’s worth asking, who is being noncompliant here? Do we only expect patients to comply to the system, or should our care system also comply to its patients?
About the Illustrator
Katy Doughty is a California-born, Texas-bred, New-England-educated illustrator with a special place in her heart for nonfiction comics. She holds a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health, and was the Associates of the Boston Public Library's Writer-in-Residence in 2021-2022. She lives in Boston with her family.
