An unprecedented number of pharmacies have closed across the country in recent years, and Black and Latino communities face an increased risk of losing access to health care services, the University of Southern California and the University of California found. This was revealed in a study conducted by the University of Berkeley.
Researchers found that nearly one in three franchised and independent pharmacies have closed since 2010, with an increase in closures reported since 2018.
Of the 88,980 drugstores that were open from 2010 to 2020, about 30% had closed by 2021, many of them serving Black and Latino communities.
Fewer pharmacies in Black and Latino neighborhoods mean they have less access to vaccinations, contraceptives, and other life-saving drugs like naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses. Masu.
“It’s making it difficult for people to access health care,” said Dr. Jerry Abraham of Kedren Health in Jefferson Park. “Mom and Pop are gone. Corporations are gone. We’re left to fend for ourselves.”
According to the study, closure rates exceeded 35% in Black and Latino neighborhoods, with independent drugstores in particular seeing the most closures.
“What’s the use of writing a prescription for the flu vaccine?” There’s nowhere to fill it, and that’s the reality today for people living in East Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, and South Los Angeles. ” said Abraham.
Areas that rely on Medicare and Medi-Cal were more likely to see pharmacy closures.
Thousands more pharmacies are expected to close over the next few years, potentially leaving many parts of the country with fewer drugstores available for the first time in at least a decade.
Researchers in the study said mergers and cost-cutting measures by corporate chains are contributing to the closures. Pharmacy benefit managers who steer patients to fewer pharmacies while negotiating prescription drug benefits may also be at fault.
“The profitability of pharmacies in these areas is probably low, so we think that’s the motivation for the closures,” said Jenny Guadams, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. “Pharmacy is a business like any other medical care in the United States.”
Guadams said the decline could be halted by offering pharmacies higher Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and by regulating pharmacy benefit managers to include more independent drugstores in their preferred networks. said.
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