NCPA. September 9, 2021.
The National Community Pharmacists Association is working with the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics to tackle barriers to pharmacy access, including closures.
The organizations’ Pharmacy Access Initiative will generate real-time information for various officials, academics and industry leaders to identify communities that lack pharmacy access. The research on these pharmacy desserts is currently underway, with the expectation that it will be released in the coming months, the organizations said.
USC’s Dima M. Qato, PharmD, MPH, PhD, Hygeia Centennial Chair and Associate Professor of Pharmacy and Spatial Sciences and Senior Fellow with the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics said, “Despite growing concerns about barriers in pharmacy access, including closures, national, state and local policy officials often lack the evidence base to promptly respond to, and inform, regulations or legislation to protect neighbor-hoods and pharmacies most at-risk. Therefore, the goal of this new USC-NCPA Pharmacy Access Initiative is to serve as a resource for federal and state policy and public health officials by conducting research and generating real-time evidence on the scope and impact of the problem of pharmacy access and identifying sustainable policy solutions to address it.”