COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nearly half of all counties in the United States have at least one “pharmacy desert,” meaning there is no pharmacy within 10 miles, according to a new study published by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and the Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).
“As pharmacies close, more and more Americans are left without easy access to medicines, with disproportionate consequences for certain communities. We found that patients in counties with higher social vulnerability and fewer primary care physicians are up to 40% more likely to live in a region with a pharmacy desert,” said Timothy Pawlik, MDLead author of the study and holder of the Urban Meyer III and Shelley Meyer Chair in Cancer Research at OSUCCC – James. Pawlik is also surgeon-in-chief at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and chairman of the Department of Surgery at The Ohio State College of Medicine.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines social vulnerability as “potential negative impacts on communities caused by external pressures on human health.”
“These findings underscore how inequalities reinforce lack of access to primary health care and how this can lead to many people not taking their prescribed medicines and thus worsening their health, particularly for chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure,” Pawlik added.
The study results were published today in JAMA Network Open.
Methods and results The researchers reviewed data from communities located within 10 miles of the nearest pharmacy from the publicly available TelePharm map. Counties were classified as having high pharmacy density if the number of pharmacy density per 1,000 residents was in the 75th percentile. The Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and health care provider data were obtained from the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Area Health Resource File databases, respectively. The researchers used statistical methods to analyze the relationships among these factors.
The study found that nearly 46% of the 3,143 counties had at least one pharmacy desert. Counties with a high density of pharmacy deserts were more socially vulnerable and had fewer primary care physicians. People in these areas with high pharmacy deserts were more likely to have difficulty accessing medications and health services.
Collaborators on this study include Giovanni Catalano, MD, Muhammad Muntazir Mehdi Khan, MBBS, and Odysseas P. Chatzipanagiotou, MD.
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