Where Data Tells the Story
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West Virginia has been ranked as the state with the highest GLP-1 drug usage rate in the United States.
The data is as of 2024, comes from the health analytics company Purple Lab, and was published by GLP-1 Newsroom.
It was compiled from insurance claims, so anyone who paid out of pocket or used compounding pharmacies wouldn’t be included. The actual numbers would likely be significantly higher.
In 2024, 24% of West Virginia’s population was on a prescription for a drug like Ozempic or Wegovy, according to data from.
That means roughly one in four West Virginians filled an insurance-covered prescription for a GLP-1 drug last year. In Hawaii, the figure was 5%.
The 19-percentage-point gap between those two states is the clearest illustration of just how unevenly America’s weight-loss drug boom is playing out.
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Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah all recorded 8% usage rates in 2024, and Hawaii came in at 5%, the lowest in the dataset.
Western states generally have lower obesity prevalence and younger population profiles than Southern and Appalachian states, which likely explains a significant portion of the gap.
Rhode Island, at 8%, is the notable geographic outlier on the low end, sitting well below the usage rates of the Northeastern states around it.
Volume and penetration do not tally
Texas recorded the highest raw prescription count in the entire dataset at 4,664,860 in 2024, edging out California’s 3,731,277, according to Purple Lab data published by GLP-1 Newsroom.
But Texas sits at only 15% usage and California at 10%. Neither figure reflects poor access or low demand. Both reflect population size.
A state of 30 million people can generate enormous prescription volumes while still having a usage rate well below the national average.
North Dakota makes the opposite point: just 142,108 prescriptions in 2024, yet an 18% usage rate, because its total population sits just above 770,000.
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