Socioeconomic status and HRT prescribing: a study of practice-level data in England

Thank you for this valuable research. I work in general practice and women’s health in South East. I have found, lower socioeconomic groups are often from different cultural backgrounds, varying language skills, less literacy skills and may have financial constraints. Thereby, having lack of literature in mother-tongues, reliance on internet use and dual prescription charges for HRT make accessing HRT more difficult for these women. I have translated some counselling material in Panjabi for this reason as it is the 10th most widely spoken language in the world. Women from BAME are often frequent attenders and are prescribed low evidence-based medication for symptoms such as, body aches and palpitations when HRT would provide far more immediate and long-term benefits such as reduction in heart and metabolic disease. The 2018 Consensus showed 13.8% of UK population is from BAME background so this is not a small number. Once this information begins to cascade in communities the uptake should be better. There is a need for research in this area.