ArticlePloS one2018
Mapping pharmacy deserts and determining accessibility to community pharmacy services for elderly enrolled in a State Pharmaceutical Assistance Program.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Identifying pharmacy gaps: a spatiotemporal study of multimodal accessibility throughout the day.International journal of health geographics · 2025Article
- Tackling Cardiovascular Care Deserts in Romania: Expanding Population Access in Underserved Areas.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Association of economic and racial segregation with restricted buprenorphine dispensing in U.S. community pharmacies.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2024Article
- Locations and characteristics of pharmacy deserts in the United States: a geospatial study.Health affairs scholar · 2024Article
- Engaging community pharmacies in practice-based research: Lessons from opioid-focused research.Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP · 2024Article
- Association Between Pharmacy Proximity With Cardiovascular Medication Use and Risk Factor Control in the United States.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024Article
- Distance Traveled and Disparities in Patients Undergoing Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy.Annals of surgical oncology · 2024Article
- What about sex, race(ism), and social determinants of health in neonatal outcomes?Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Review
- State Telepharmacy Policies and Pharmacy Deserts.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Geographic Variation in Access to Cardiac Rehabilitation.Journal of the American College of Cardiology · 2023Article
- Rethinking access to care: A spatial-economic analysis of the potential impact of pharmacy closures in the United States.PloS one · 2023Article
- Mapping access to drug outlets in Vietnam: distribution of drug outlets and the sociodemographic characteristics of the communities they serve.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2023Article
- Mapping Real-World Data to Self-Reported Information to Explore Determinants of Location Selection for Community Pharmacies in Taiwan.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2023Article
- Animal welfare deserts: human and nonhuman animal inequities.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2023Article
- Providing pharmaceutical care remotely through medicines delivery services in community pharmacy.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesLimited studies have investigated geographic accessibility to a nearby community pharmacy for elderly which is an essential determinant of the access to medications and pharmacy services. This research identified pharmacy deserts and investigated availability of different types of community pharmacies and their services for elderly enrolled in a State Pharmaceutical Assistance Program (SPAP).
methodsThe state of Pennsylvania in the US was used as a case to demonstrate the geographic accessibility to community pharmacy and services for elderly enrolled in SPAP. The locations of community pharmacies and households of elderly enrolled in SPAP were derived from Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly programs' database. The street addresses were geocoded and the distance to a nearby community pharmacy was calculated for study sample using the haversine formula. The demographic and geographic data were aggregated to Census Tracts and pharmacy deserts were identified using the predefined criteria. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to determine whether there are statistical differences in the socio-demographic profiles and distribution of different types of community pharmacies and their services in pharmacy deserts and non-deserts. This research used hot spot analyses at county level to identify clusters of pharmacy deserts, areas with high concentration of different racial/ethnic groups and clusters of high densities of chain and independent pharmacies.
resultsThe Spatial analysis revealed that 39% and 61% Census Tracts in Pennsylvania were pharmacy deserts and non-deserts respectively (p < 0.001). Pharmacy deserts were found to have significantly more females, married and white elderly and fewer blacks and Hispanics compared to pharmacy non-deserts. Pharmacy deserts had significantly fewer chain and independent pharmacies and less delivery and 24-hour services in pharmacies than pharmacy non-deserts. Hot spot analyses showed that clusters of pharmacy deserts were more concentrated in southcentral, northwest and northeast regions of the state which represent rural areas and overlapped with clusters of high concentration of white individuals.
conclusionsThe findings suggest that urban-rural inequality, racial/ethnic disparity and differences in availability of pharmacies and their services exist between pharmacy deserts and non-deserts. The methodological approach and analyses used in this study can also be applied to other public health programs to evaluate the coverage and breadth of public health services.
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