Prescription drug in the context of "Health claim"

The cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living for an individual or a household. Changes in the cost of living over time can be measured in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living in different geographic areas. Differences in the cost of living between locations can be measured in terms of purchasing power parity rates. A sharp rise in the cost of living can trigger a cost of living crisis, where purchasing power is lost and, for some people, their previous lifestyle is no longer affordable.

The link between income and health is well-established. People who are facing poverty are less likely to seek regular and professional medical advice, receive dental care, or resolve health issues. The cost of prescription medicine is often cited as a metric in cost of living research and consumer price indices. Cost of living pressures may lead to household energy insecurity or fuel poverty as well as housing stress.As the cost of living steadily increases, the amount of household income necessary for a financially comfortable life subsequently increases, thus resulting in the number of people who do possess the privilege of a comfortable financial situation decreasing over time. Said privileges of financial comfort become more exclusive to higher classes as the cost of living becomes difficult to afford for more and more people.

Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and relies on the science of pharmacology for continual advancement and on pharmacy for appropriate management.

Drugs are classified in many ways. One of the key divisions is by level of control, which distinguishes prescription drugs (those that a pharmacist dispenses only on the medical prescription) from over-the-counter drugs (those that consumers can order for themselves). Medicines may be classified by mode of action, route of administration, biological system affected, or therapeutic effects. The World Health Organization keeps a list of essential medicines.

A pharmacy (also called drugstore in North American English or community pharmacy or chemist in Commonwealth English) is a premises which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of medical prescriptions and is available to counsel patients about prescription and over-the-counter drugs or about health problems and wellness issues. A typical pharmacy would be in the commercial area of a community.

COVID-19 drug development is the research process to develop preventative therapeutic prescription drugs that would alleviate the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). From early 2020 through 2021, several hundred drug companies, biotechnology firms, university research groups, and health organizations were developing therapeutic candidates for COVID-19 disease in various stages of preclinical or clinical research (506 total candidates in April 2021), with 419 potential COVID-19 drugs in clinical trials, as of April 2021.

As early as March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO), European Medicines Agency (EMA), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Chinese government and drug manufacturers were coordinating with academic and industry researchers to speed development of vaccines, antiviral drugs, and post-infection therapies. The International Clinical Trials Registry Platform of the WHO recorded 536 clinical studies to develop post-infection therapies for COVID-19 infections, with numerous established antiviral compounds for treating other infections under clinical research to be repurposed.

In drug development, preclinical development (also termed preclinical studies or nonclinical studies) is a stage of research that begins before clinical trials (testing in humans) and during which important feasibility, iterative testing and drug safety data are collected, typically in laboratory animals.

The main goals of preclinical studies are to determine a starting, safe dose for first-in-human study and assess potential toxicity of the product, which typically include new medical devices, prescription drugs, and diagnostics.

A controlled substance is generally a drug or chemical whose manufacture, possession, and use is regulated by a government, such as illicitly-obtained drugs or prescription medications that are designated by law. Some treaties, notably the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, provide internationally agreed-upon "schedules" of controlled substances, which have been incorporated into national laws; however, national laws usually significantly expand on these international conventions.

Some precursor chemicals used for the illegal production of 'controlled drugs' are also controlled substances in many countries, even though they may lack the pharmacological effects of the drugs themselves. Substances are classified according to schedules and consist primarily of potentially psychoactive substances and anabolic steroids. The controlled substances do not include many prescription items such as antibiotics.

A prescription in the medical context, often abbreviated ℞ or Rx, is a formal communication from physicians or other registered healthcare professionals to a pharmacist, authorizing them to dispense a specific prescription drug for a specific patient. Historically, it was a physician's instruction to an apothecary listing the materials to be compounded into a treatment—the symbol ℞ (a capital letter R, crossed to indicate abbreviation) comes from the first word of a medieval prescription, Latin recipe (lit. 'take thou'), that gave the list of the materials to be compounded. Requirements for content, who may prescribe, and how prescriptions are transmitted vary by country; many jurisdictions use electronic prescribing systems.