PhD defence D. (Dennis) Steenhuis

Real-world effects of primary preventive drug therapies on cardiovascular events

Explorations using causal statistical models

This thesis looks at how well cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure-lowering medicines work for primary prevention in everyday practice. High blood pressure and high cholesterol are major risk factors for serious heart and vascular problems. Besides studying which medicines are used, how effective they are, and how well people stick to them, the research also looked at the impact of out-of-pocket costs/deductibles. It found that having to pay for these medicines through the deductible can negatively affect how well people stick to their treatment