The Health Divide: Drugstores are leaving Black and Latino neighborhoods, creating prescription drug deserts

Drugstores offer essential health services, providing people with necessary and sometimes lifesaving access to their prescriptions.  

They also provide over-the-counter medications, vaccinations, blood pressure screenings, and devices like canes and shower stools. Less acknowledged but just as important, drugstores like Walgreens and CVS sell vital household staples like milk, bread, baby formula, water, cereal, and canned goods. 

But drugstores today face significant financial challenges, including declining prescription reimbursement rates, rising operational costs, and changes in consumer behavior.  

As a result, many drugstores have closed their less profitable locations. These closures primarily impact Black and Latino neighborhoods, creating prescription deserts. Those with limited financial resources are forced to travel longer distances to get their medications. 

Over the past three years, major chains like Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart have closed hundreds of stores nationwide, a trend that’s expected to continue. 

Research published in Health Affairs in December reveals that nearly 30% of drugstores in the United States that were operational a decade ago had closed by 2021 — that’s 26,000 pharmacies. 

“The risk for closure for pharmacies in predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods was higher than in White neighborhoods,” the study showed. 

Thousands of drugstores closed in 2024  

In October, Walgreens announced plans to close 1,200 stores by 2027, with 500 of those closures expected by the end of this year. The decision to close about 13% of its stores is part of CEO Tim Wentworth's multi-year cost-cutting initiative.  

The news resembles CVS Health's move in 2024, when the company laid off 2,900 employees and continued its three-year plan to close nearly 1000 stores, many of them in Black and Hispanicneighborhoods. Additionally, Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023. It closed nearly 800 stores nationally — 38% of all locations — as it struggled with more than $3 billion in debt and faced thousands of lawsuits regarding its alleged role in worsening the country’s opioid crisis. 

The shutdown of drug stores in predominantly minority neighborhoods has not gone unnoticed. 

When residents in Roxbury, Massachusetts, protested the closing of the fourth Walgreens store in less than two years in predominantly disadvantaged neighborhoods, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and U.S. Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren penned a letter to Wentworth. 

“These closures are occurring within the larger legacy of historic racial and economic discrimination that has created significant pharmacy and food deserts and lack of access to transportation in these neighborhoods,” the letter said. 

Jenny Guadamuz, an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said pharmacy closures negatively impact public health by making it harder for people to access prescriptions and essential health services. 

“Our findings suggest that closures may widen health disparities in access to prescription and other essential pharmacy services, such as vaccinations and pharmacist-prescribed regimens, including contraceptives, medications for HIV prevention, and treatments for opioid use disorder,” Guadamuz told CNN. 

Guadamuz, who co-authored a study on drugstore closures, also found that: 

• Between 2018 and 2021, the number of pharmacies declined in 41 states.  
• Pharmacy closure rates were higher in predominately Black and Latino neighborhoods — 37.5% and 35.6%, respectively—than predominately white ones (27.7%). 

The study also showed that independent pharmacies were more than twice as likely to close as chain stores. They were also much more likely to be in Black, Latino, and low-income neighborhoods, as well as those with disproportionate rates of people with Medicare or Medicaid coverage. 

I live in a predominantly African American neighborhood, and within a 5-mile radius of my home, three Walgreens locations have closed, with more set to close their doors this year.   

When large drugstores close, they often leave behind boarded-up buildings that detract from the neighborhood. In our online community group, several residents, including my family, shared how they transferred their prescriptions to a Pick 'n Save grocery store — 7 miles away.  

Disadvantaged neighborhoods most impacted 

Walgreens customer Lorna Robinson expressed her frustration about the recent store closures during an interview with local Milwaukee TV station TMJ4 News.  

After the Walgreens closest to her home at Capitol and Teutonia closed, she began using the Walgreens on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. However, both locations had shut down by the first week of December. 

Robinson, who is Black, believes she should not be forced to leave her neighborhood to find a pharmacy. “Why do you keep closing every Walgreens people need in their neighborhood?” Robinson questioned. 

The nearest Walgreens to Robinson now requires an additional six minutes of driving, which takes even longer for those without a car or those who must walk. After the Walgreens on MLK Drive closed in early December, several seniors and others using walkers approached the location only to find the doors locked. 

It’s up to health journalists to more closely examine the impact these waves of pharmacy closures are having on vulnerable communities and seniors. One key question to keep asking: Why are closures clustered in communities of color rather than more broadly distributed?   

While the CEOs of these pharmacies may see store closures as a mere “inconvenience” for shoppers, this inconvenience becomes a significant obstacle for those forced to travel greater distances to obtain their medications — and least equipped to do so.