Regulated medication information, accessible web delivery? A cross-sectional evaluation of united states prescription drug brand homepages

Abstract

Abstract Prescription drug brand homepages are widely used entry points for medication information in the United States, yet their usability as patient-facing digital interfaces is not well characterized. We evaluated official U.S. prescription drug brand homepages using a reproducible multidomain benchmarking approach. We conducted a cross-sectional benchmarking study of 338 official U.S. prescription drug brand homepages. A high-reach brand list was derived from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Medicare Part D dataset and validated against the Food and Drug Administration National Drug Code Directory. Each homepage was assessed using standardized mobile lab audits, field user experience metrics where available, automated accessibility checks mapped to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Levels A and AA, and text readability measures. Overall homepage quality was summarized using a prespecified composite benchmark. Overall homepage quality, summarized by the composite benchmark, was moderate (median Score 67.1; interquartile range [IQR] 57.4−75.3), whereas lab-based performance was often weak (median Lighthouse Performance 56; IQR 47−68). Automated accessibility findings were widespread: Level A findings had a median of 7 per homepage (IQR 3−14), and only 2.7% of homepages had no Level A findings. Among homepages with field data, visual stability was poor for 20.4%. These findings indicate a practical gap between regulating informational content and delivering that content through interfaces that are consistently fast, stable, accessible, and easy to use.