Pharmacy Deserts: Baltimore's struggle with health disparities and medication access

BALTIMORE — The Walgreens at Erdman Shopping Center used to be William Smith's go-to pharmacy.

For him, it was all about convenience.

"That was a jewel, I bought a lot of stuff out of there," Smith said. "I could even walk. I put [my car] parked, saved the gas."

But a couple months ago, a sign was put on the door, informing everyone the location would close on Feb. 21.

The news was hard for Smith.

"I'm like, what the heck is going on. I almost cussed. I got pissed off," he said.

The sign went on, saying all prescriptions would be moved up the road to the CVS at 3300 Belair Rd. It's a little more than a half mile away from Erdman Shopping Center, about a three minute drive.

It's not too bad for Smith, since he has a car, but he worries for his neighbors -- particularly those who walked to Walgreens like him.

"I'm thinking about the older people, what are they gonna do now? This is so convenient," Smith said.

It's no secret Baltimore is home to a number of health disparities, particularly relating to health care access.

In a collaboration with our media partner, The Baltimore Banner, WJZ took a look to see how big of an issue pharmacy deserts are for the city.

By definition, pharmacy deserts are areas with no pharmacies within a mile radius. The Banner analyzed how prevalent the issue is in Baltimore's neighborhoods.

The idea came from neighborhood reporter, Clara de Longo Freitas.

"Around my neighborhood, there was maybe another CVS, but nothing that would actually take my insurance," she said. "So, it got me thinking, what happens in neighborhoods when there isn't a pharmacy at all, or a pharmacy that isn't accessible to everyone."

In an investigation The Banner shared with us, they found overall in the city, the average distance to a pharmacy is just under a mile. However, some neighborhoods have it worse than others.

Data reporter Ryan Little looked closer at pharmacy locations in the city and found there are some areas where the distance to a pharmacy is above average. For some neighborhoods, the closes pharmacy is nearly two miles away.

Most of those areas, they found, are in black and brown neighborhoods.

Dr. Lorece Edwards, a professor at Morgan State University's School of Community Health and Policy, said health disparities like pharmacy deserts are the result of historical policies like segregation.

"If we remove and extrapolate pharmacies from these areas, it only exacerbates the health disparities that were already there," Edwards said.

On the surface, Edwards said, pharmacy deserts lead to a lack of medication access. However, it disrupts other medical services, too.

One big one we saw during the pandemic, for example: vaccine distribution.

"Pharmacies are a very important arm of the health care system. For people not to be able to reach them, based on geographical location, only adds to health disparities," she said.

But, there are other issues that can arise. Longo de Freitas found in her reporting, those who went to the Walgreens at Erdman Shopping Center were also worried for other businesses in the plaza.

Those worries looked to be warranted, as the store right next to the former Walgreens was going out of business by mid-April.

Smith is one of those neighbors now wondering what's next to go.

"If [the grocery store] goes, ain't nobody coming here. Why are they gonna need to come up here," he said.

Not all areas with shuttered pharmacies have this worry. In November, the Walgreens in Locust Point closed. However, a new store is already moving in.

Edwards said the two closings show the stark difference when a pharmacy closes in a lower-income area versus a more affluent one.

To solve this issue, she said it's going to take proactive policy, specifically ones that would help bring pharmacies to low-income, disinvested communities.

"One of the ways we can do that is incentivize these pharmacies, perhaps through grants," Edwards said. "Perhaps through different types of reimbursements."

You can view an interactive map that shows how accessible pharmacies by neighborhood at the Baltimore Banner.