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As the United States continues the fight against COVID-19, officials are leveraging pharmacies to help administer vaccinations. This is excellent news for anybody who doesn t live near a hospital or clinic. But for 15 million Americans, getting their shots at a pharmacy still puts the vaccination out of reach.
Health Affairs found that 1 out of 3 urban neighborhoods is in a pharmacy desert. Initially coined in 2014 by Dima M. Qato, PharmD, associate professor at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles and senior author of this study, a pharmacy desert is an urban neighborhood that is more than a mile away from the nearest pharmacy. The distance is reduced to half a mile for neighborhoods with at least 100 households with no vehicle access or 20 percent of households below the federal poverty level.
In Los Angeles, one-third of all Black and Latino neighborhoods were pharmacy deserts. (Photo/JJBers)
Black and Latino neighborhoods in the 30 most populous U.S. cities had fewer pharmacies than white or diverse neighborhoods in 2007-2015, USC research shows, suggesting that pharmacy deserts like so-called food deserts may be an overlooked contributor to persistent racial and ethnic health disparities.
Pharmacies are increasingly vital points of care for essential health services. In addition to filling prescriptions to treat chronic health conditions, pharmacists dispense emergency doses of naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses, contraceptives to prevent unplanned pregnancy and COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
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One-third of all neighborhoods in largest U.S. cities have been ‘pharmacy deserts’
Black and Latino neighborhoods in the 30 most populous U.S. cities had fewer pharmacies than white or diverse neighborhoods in 2007-2015, USC research shows, suggesting that ‘pharmacy deserts’ like so-called food deserts may be an overlooked contributor to persistent racial and ethnic health disparities.
Pharmacies are increasingly vital points of care for essential health services. In addition to filling prescriptions to treat chronic health conditions, pharmacists dispense emergency doses of naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses, contraceptives to prevent unplanned pregnancy and COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
Health tool significantly reduces medication over-prescription, improving patient safety For news media
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When a doctor stops or changes a prescription in a patient’s electronic health record, this information may not reach the pharmacy, leading to the problem of dispensing discontinued medications.
A new study from a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has found that the e-prescribing tool CancelRx more than doubled the proportion of successfully discontinued medications, from 34 percent to 93 percent, at UW Health, a major health system in Wisconsin.
Michelle Chui
CancelRx, built and standardized by the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, is the only tool of its kind. Without CancelRx, there is no automatic mechanism to notify pharmacies of canceled prescriptions, leaving the door open for patients to be over-prescribed or to pick up discontinued medications, both of which pose a health risk.
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