Princeton, N.J., November 10, 1998 - Consumer Health Sciences (CHS), a consumer healthcare information company, announces results from the National Health and Wellness Survey, CHS's latest nationally representative survey of more than 16,000 adult respondents.

The National Health and Wellness Survey provides a wealth of consumer-reported information, providing insight into the patient as a consumer. Information includes:

• Use of prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and herbal remedies;
• Use of traditional versus alternative/complementary treatment options;
• Use of healthcare services and facilities;
• Drug satisfaction and compliance rates;
• Pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising recall.

Rx Use, OTC/Herbal Use, and Lack of Product Use Are Measured by Medical Condition:
Among several of the medical conditions surveyed, CHS finds that surprisingly high percentages of patients are not being treated with any product (Rx, OTC, or herbal) at all. For example, more than one in five arthritis sufferers are not using any product to treat their condition. Similarly, almost one quarter of diabetics are taking no product at all to treat their diabetes. For certain conditions, relatively high numbers of patients are using OTC and/or herbal products instead of Rxs. For example, more than half of all migraine sufferers use an OTC or herbal product instead of an Rx to treat their symptoms.

Condition:	Rx:	OTC/Herbal Only:	No Product Used:
Arthritis	28%	50%	22%
Diabetes	75%	2%	23%
Migraine	36%	57%	7%

"These figures are extremely significant for healthcare industry decision-makers and marketers because they represent insight into an area that has not been widely measured," states Jane A. Donohue, President of CHS. "The survey results enable us to provide insightful data to guide healthcare executives, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, in their efforts to understand and market to targeted consumers."

Data for Virtually All Medical Conditions Available:
The CHS National Health and Wellness Survey database measures product use for many prompted conditions and also reports data for any other condition reported by survey respondents. Prompted conditions include:

Arthritis Asthma Cholesterol Depression Diabetes GERD

Heartburn Hypertension Menopausal Migraine Nasal Allergies Osteoporosis

Direct to Consumer Advertising:
The survey also queried respondents about direct-to-consumer advertising efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, asking them if they recalled seeing or hearing advertisements for 24 specific brand-name prescription and OTC drugs, and whether or not respondents spoke to their doctor or friends about each product.

The new National Health and Wellness Survey information is maintained in a relational database and is immediately available from CHS. Additional disease-specific, longitudinal surveys on Alzheimer's Disease, Depression, Diabetes, and Schizophrenia are also available from CHS.

For more information, please contact Jeff Forringer at (609) 924-4455, ext. 104 or at Forringer@aol.com.

Consumer Health Sciences, LLC is a privately held company that specializes in providing consumer healthcare data from professionally designed surveys and expert data analysis. CHS originated the concept of providing specific consumer healthcare data to pharmaceutical industry decision-makers and it maintains the largest commercially available database in this area. The firm has become profitable in just two years, more than doubling its revenues between 1997 and 1998.