MILWAUKEE — Walgreens is planning to permanently close its third Milwaukee store in the past three months.
The latest closure highlights the little-known issue of pharmacy deserts in Milwaukee. A 2021 study shows the city has some of the worst disparities in the country when it comes to proximity to pharmacies.
For Latasha Langston, getting her medications is a necessity, but it comes with the same challenge each trip to the pharmacy.
“It’s one to three hours round trip,” she said.
Latasha is unable to drive so she has to catch a ride each time she needs a refill.
“I’m on a lot of different medications that is very hazardous to my health if I don’t take them,” she said.
She lives in what’s called a pharmacy desert. In most urban areas, it’s defined as living at least a mile away from a pharmacy. But in low-income neighborhoods where a majority of households do not own a car, scholars say the threshold is just half a mile.
“I think the assumption is that most people live near a pharmacy and that’s not true,” said Dima Qato.
Qato is a professor and researcher at the University of Southern California. She authored a study on pharmacy deserts in the 30 most populated U.S. cities in 2021. She found Milwaukee was one of the eight with the worst disparities.
“What we found in Milwaukee for example, Black, majority Black or segregated Black neighborhoods, about 60 percent of them were pharmacy deserts compared to less than 18 percent of white neighborhoods, so there’s at least a threefold increase,” she said.
A heat map from the study shows most of Milwaukee’s pharmacy deserts exist on the city’s north side in majority Black neighborhoods.
“A lot of the pharmacies that are nearest to Black or Latinx neighborhoods including in Milwaukee serve a largely publicly insured population either through Medicaid or Medicare Part D and we know Medicaid and Medicare pay less or reimburse pharmacies less for their prescriptions that they fill for their beneficiaries and that plays a role,” she said.
Dr. Hashim Zaibak with the National Community Pharmacist Association knows that when pharmacies choose to close, customers end up paying the price.
“The people in these zip codes in the inner city of Milwaukee are significantly sicker than other populations in other zip codes,” he said. “They have a higher risk of diabetes, this has been proven. They have a higher risk of diabetes, higher risk of high blood pressure, higher risk of obesity.”
Dr. Zaibak fears more pharmacy closures are on the horizon unless something is done. Qato says there are multiple ways to prevent that from becoming a reality.
“I think at the state level we need to protect pharmacies at risk for closure including independent pharmacies, but also I think improve and strengthen accountability for larger chains, for pharmacy benefit managers to ensure that there’s more equity in decisions being made on what pharmacies to close and which ones stay open,” she said.
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