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TOPLINE:
Pharmacy closures in america are creating “pharmacy deserts,” disproportionately affecting socially weak communities. Excessive social vulnerability and low major care practitioner (PCP) density are linked to elevated pharmacy desert density.
METHODOLOGY:
- Knowledge by way of 2020 on communities positioned 10 or extra miles from the closest retail pharmacy have been sourced from TelePharm Map.
- Counties have been stratified as having a excessive pharmacy desert density if the variety of pharmacy deserts per 1000 inhabitants was within the eightieth percentile or greater.
- Social vulnerability index and healthcare practitioner information have been obtained from the Company for Poisonous Substances and Illness Registry and the Space Well being Sources Information.
- PCP density was calculated because the variety of PCPs per 10,000 inhabitants.
- A complete of 3143 counties have been analyzed, with 1447 (46%) having a minimum of one pharmacy desert.
TAKEAWAY:
- Counties with a excessive pharmacy desert density had a better social vulnerability index than these with a low pharmacy desert density (P = .006).
- Areas with a excessive pharmacy desert density had decrease median PCP density than these with low or no pharmacy desert density (P < .001).
- Excessive social vulnerability index (odds ratio [OR], 1.35; 95% CI, 1.07-1.70; P = .01) and low PCP density (OR, 2.27; 95% CI, 1.80-2.86; P < .001) have been related to a better probability for a county to have a excessive pharmacy desert density.
- Pharmacy closures are leaving extra people with out easy accessibility to drugs, with disproportionate penalties for sure communities.
IN PRACTICE:
“As excessive pharmacy desert density counties even have a decrease PCP density, sufferers residing in these areas face elevated limitations to accessing major healthcare wants,” wrote the authors of the research.
SOURCE:
The research was led by Giovanni Catalano, MD, Muhammad Muntazir Mehdi Khan, MBBS, and Timothy M. Pawlik, MD, PhD, MPH, MTS, MBA, Division of Surgical procedure, The Ohio State College Wexner Medical Middle in Columbus, Ohio. It was published online on August 23 in JAMA Community Open.
LIMITATIONS:
The cross-sectional design of the research restricted the flexibility to attract causal inferences. The research relied on public county-level information, which can not have captured all related variables. Using the social vulnerability index and PCP density as proxies didn’t totally symbolize the complexity of pharmacy entry points. The research’s findings weren’t generalizable to areas exterior america.
DISCLOSURES:
No related conflicts of curiosity have been disclosed by the authors. Extra disclosures are famous within the unique article.
This text was created utilizing a number of editorial instruments, together with AI, as a part of the method. Human editors reviewed this content material earlier than publication.
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