4/11/2025

Left behind

There is a lot at stake as more pharmacies close.

I have a confession to make: I had the wrong idea about pharmacy deserts the first time I heard the term.

Let’s first look at the definition: an area where residents lack convenient access to a pharmacy–10 miles in rural areas or one mile in urban areas.

Clearly 10 miles in a rural area is a great distance to fill a script, pick up some acne cream or receive a flu shot. But then, I thought, one mile in an urban area is not that far. I dug a little deeper into the details though, and I developed a different perspective.

Some people don’t drive, making access more difficult. Some people may have physical challenges, making public transportation even more difficult. In some cases, they may lack public transportation all together. What’s more, some people may not have resources for a ride share or a taxi. Once you start considering the various reasons a person may have a limitation, then the closures seem more significant.

Our cover story this month takes a look at store closures across the country and the ramifications.

Industry watchers and experts agree that the closures are creating dire problems that do not have an obvious solution. Pharmacy deserts can seriously impact patient outcomes, particularly when it comes to medication/treatment adherence for chronic conditions, contraceptive use or emergency antidotes for opioid abuse. Elderly and disabled people often face more challenges. Where residents lack cars, drug stores often double as general stores for everything from groceries to UPS services and printer cartridges.

The problem is likely to worsen.

“We’ve been tracking pharmacy and healthcare deserts since 2019,” Tori Marsh, GoodRx’s director of research, told our reporter. “There’s been more pharmacy closures over the past six to 12 months. The number of people living in deserts keeps growing, as does the number of counties classifi ed as pharmacy deserts. Many are rural areas.”

Hopefully, great minds in and out of the industry can come up with a solution to a problem that affects such a large part of the U.S. population.