Monitoring the vitamin D package measure
- "...discontinue the reimbursement of all vitamin D products containing cholecalciferol or calcifediol from 1 January 2023"
People belong to this vulnerable group if they have at least 1 of these characteristics.
This was selected because people often have more than 1 issue.
people with difficulty keeping oversight of their medicines;
people with osteoporosis;
people with a language barrier or an immigration background;
people with a low level of education;
people with low socio-economic status;
people with generally ill health;
people with limited health literacy;
people with low-level literacy.
Study results: most people continued taking vitamin D
The study shows that a large proportion of vulnerable people have continued to take vitamin D:
- 65% continued to use vitamin D and now pay for it themselves. The main reason is that people consider vitamin D necessary for their health.
- 5% stopped taking vitamin D. Half of them say they stopped because they cannot afford it.
- 20% still had a supply of vitamin D and continued to use it. Of this group,
- 70% say they will continue taking vitamin D when they run out of supply.
- 6 to 7% say they will stop.
- The remaining 10% did not enter any useful information.
- The study also shows that patient compliance in vulnerable vitamin D users is not optimal in 2023: some people take less vitamin D than they should. However, that was already the case in 2022, meaning that patient compliance has not changed as a result of the package measure.
Patient compliance is not optimal
"Almost half of the people using it forget to take it and part of them consciously takes it differently.
Half of the stoppers indicate they cannot afford the product
About 5% of the vulnerable group report that they have stopped taking vitamin D, half of them because they cannot afford it.
• If this is extrapolated to the Dutch situation, it affects about 25,000 vulnerable people who are forgoing vitamin D because of the costs (available over the counter from less than 10 euros per person per year).
Note by VitaminDWiki: 50,000 IU pill every two weeks would cost <5 euros/person/year
AND there would be 13 fewer occasions to forget to take it
Download the 5 page study from VitaminDWiki
VitaminDWiki: Can get 50,000 IU Vitamin D anywhere on the globe
18+ Amazon suppliers say it can be taken weekly
6 studies of giving Vitamin D
- Infants have gotten free 400 IU of vitamin D in Turkey since 2005, More for longer would be even better – Feb 2022
- Romania joins Turkey in giving free Vitamin D to all infants – 2018
- Employers gain 10 dollars in productivity for every dollar spent on giving Vitamin D for free
- US Food stamps program being asked to add free Vitamin D - June 2023
- Employers should give night shift workers free vitamin D – GMB Union June 2019
- All pregnant women in Scotland to get free vitamin D - April 2017