ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A collaboration between the National Community Pharmacists Association and University of Southern California has resulted in a new interactive mapping tool that could promote health equity by identifying pharmacy shortage areas in the United States. It can also help policymakers see the consequences of unfair pharmacy benefit manager practices believed to contribute to pharmacy access issues.

A showcase of the USC-NCPA Pharmacy Access Initiative’s Pharmacy Shortage Area mapping project will be held on Nov. 17. The tool, originally announced in October, demonstrates that nearly 1 in 4 neighborhoods nationwide are pharmacy shortage areas, however information shown by the tool is not just where pharmacy shortage areas are, but how some populations may be disproportionately affected.

WHO: Pharmacy Access Initiative Co-Directors Dima Qato, PharmD, MPH, PhD, USC Associate Professor of Pharmacy and Spatial Sciences and Senior Fellow with the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics; and Ronna Hauser, PharmD, senior vice president of policy and pharmacy affairs at NCPA

WHAT: A showcase of the dynamic Pharmacy Shortage Area mapping tool in action

WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT

WHERE: The showcase will take place via Zoom. Register to attend by clicking here.