Burned-out pharmacists and panicked patients — as a pharmacy technician, Lamiya Kadir is on the frontlines of a national pharmacy shortage impacting thousands of Angelenos. As neighboring pharmacies closed around Kadir’s pharmacy, she said her location became overwhelmed with new customers, resulting in late prescriptions and overworked pharmacists.

Meanwhile, longer travel times and the hassle of transferring medications across pharmacies irritated customers and created a higher stress level on both sides of the pharmacy’s counter.

“Within the almost two years I’ve been working, customers have told me about four pharmacy closures,” said Kadir, a senior majoring in pharmacology and drug development. “My  pharmacist that I work with, they’re staying overtime quite frequently, and there’s a lot of frustration on the customer’s end.”

To gain a better understanding of the pharmacy shortage, researchers from the Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, have relaunched the Pharmacy Shortage Areas Mapping Tool. The map serves as an interactive data platform that tracks pharmacy shortage information across the United States.

The upgraded tool allows users to zoom into neighborhoods, access more than a decade of pharmacy data and identify whether the area is a “pharmacy desert” — a region where pharmacies are scarce or inaccessible due to distance, transportation barriers or economic challenges. It could help people locate pharmacies and guide advocacy efforts from lawmakers and nonprofits.

Robert Vos, an associate professor of spatial sciences and one of the tool’s developers, said the revamped tool represents an upgrade in both its data scale and functionality. The original tool, launched in 2022, was limited to two years of data and was only accessible to researchers and policymakers. The new version includes data from 2010 to 2024, covering pharmacy status and population characteristics, and identifying pharmacy deserts across the country.

For Jason Hoang, a senior majoring in pharmacology and drug development, USC’s new tool is inspiring. Hoang recalled his grandmother’s anxiety when her pharmacy closed, and said he hoped the tool could be used to prompt legislative change to ensure communities in pharmacy deserts could access their medication. 

“I might not have as much capacity as an individual pharmacist to do something about pharmacy deserts,” Hoang said. “An inspirational thing is being able to band with other pharmacists and other health professionals working on a legislative level to see if we can do something about pharmacy deserts, and [use] the map as examples of how pharmacy deserts can have disproportionate impacts on certain communities.”

Jeffrey Rozelle, a doctoral candidate in spatial sciences who led the new version’s technical development, said the latest update to the tool has enabled users to track change over time through an interactive timeline. He said the tool now also has more information for each administrative area that would be useful for people who are advocating for pharmacy benefit reforms. 

“We included information about congressional districts as well to help the public and pharmacy access advocates to have some information to talk to their lawmakers about,” Rozelle said. “We gathered a lot of information from some folks who work on Capitol Hill … to find what kind of information would be useful to people who are advocating for PBM reform.”

Vos said another highlight of the new tool is a filter for “critical access” pharmacies — those whose closure would create a new pharmacy desert, which can help policymakers identify priorities in intervention. 

“We’ve been able to let communities know and let policy makers know where there are pharmacies that are particularly critical because there are people who are relying on those pharmacies, and if they close, there’s nothing else in the area,” Vos said. 

The tool also enables users to view the racial or ethnic majority of areas within pharmacy deserts, what percentage of the population is over 65 years old, and what percentage of the population is on Medicare or Medicaid.

Sebastien Bagalso, a freshman majoring in biopharmaceutical sciences, said that demographic information was particularly important, both to understand the impact of pharmacy deserts on marginalized communities and because not all pharmacies accept Medicare or Medicaid.  

“Even though there are pharmacies nearby, [there] isn’t a feasible way for people to get their medication, because these local pharmacies are often [overlooked] by Medicare or Medicaid, and so that is also a barrier in terms of healthcare and medication,” Bagalso said. “It’s not just location, but also how we can ensure that people get their medication.”

Currently, the tool’s interface requires users to create an account before logging in, a decision tied to data protection and responsible use agreements. While acknowledging that the feature is currently “more of a hassle than a benefit”, Rozelle said it also allows researchers to discover the most utilized features and identify ways of improvement.

“From the design side, it helps us to figure out the focus while keeping some security,” Rozelle said, “Being able to understand what our user base is and what kind of things we should invest in for development.”

Looking ahead, Vos said the team plans to update the tool’s data annually. Rozelle said the team may consider integrating the aspect of travel time and road network to refine definitions of shortage areas. Another upcoming addition is the “Data Explorer” tab, which will allow users to filter attributes and generate customized charts, graphs and reports.

Diane Nguyen, a sophomore majoring in pharmacology and drug development, said growing up with multiple pharmacies within walking distance made it much easier to navigate having an autoimmune disease. Nguyen said the pharmacy desert map put into perspective how many people in Los Angeles did not have access to a local pharmacy.

Nguyen said she recalled Mann helping to distribute COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic, and hoped Mann would use the pharmacy map to deliver another tangible, positive impact to Los Angeles. 

“I hope that even the universities try to play our part, because I do believe that we can only hope so much that our policymakers are going to be hearing our beliefs,” Nguyen said. “This pharmacy desert map is definitely a step towards change for a better future.”