Fox 59 News, October 25, 2021.
INDIANAPOLIS– For many Hoosiers, filling their prescriptions can be a roadblock to getting healthier. That’s because many Indiana cities don’t have a pharmacy in their neighborhood.
Dr. Dima Qato, from USC’s School of Pharmacy, coined the term pharmacy desert. She explained to Edmé the pandemic further impacted this health disparity.
“It was a great natural experiment to see how pharmacies matter and they impact access, and in this case to the vaccine or diagnostic testing,” detailed Qato, also a senior fellow of the USC’s Health Policy & Economics Department. “And I think during the early part of the pandemic with the testing, it became really apparent that where do we go to get tested if the pharmacies are so far away.”