June 4, 2024
Putting Pharmacies on the Map for Health Care
Lucas Berenbrok investigates how pharmacies can fill gaps in people's health care needs.
TOPICS: People | School of Pharmacy
Designs on Aging-Ready
By Strategic Communications
Many Americans face hurdles in getting health care, but almost all Americans can easily get to a pharmacy.
That’s the central premise driving much of the work of Lucas Berenbrok, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, School of Pharmacy. He’s interested in the ways pharmacies can be entry points or delivery centers for certain aspects of health care.
During the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, Berenbrok began a project to map the locations of the approximately 62,000 pharmacies in the country to learn how pharmacies might be filling gaps in people’s health care needs.
That work to visualize pharmacy access grew to be an especially valuable tool in 2024, as many independent pharmacies—as well as national chains like Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreen—shuttered locations, leading to worries over what are known as “pharmacy deserts.” The Associated Press even used the map as part of a nationwide project on pharmacy closures.
“Pharmacies are in every neighborhood, and they’re open on nights, weekends, holidays, when some other health care providers might not be open. And so, people really look to pharmacies as a place where they can get health care, and they can help with their overall health and wellness.”
We spoke with Berenbrok about his work. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Part of our professional identity as pharmacists is as the medication experts, but we’re also health care providers and clinicians.”
Lucas Berenbrok, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics
Q: How did you get interested in being a pharmacist?
A: I liked the chemistry piece of it, I liked the science behind it, and I liked this idea that I could help people in a very specific way. I grew up in Beaver County, and my first job was working at Giant Eagle stocking shelves, getting buggies, and my favorite part of the job was standing at the end of the conveyor belt and bagging groceries because I got to talk to people. It made me feel a part of the community, and so that’s kind of how and why I gravitate toward community pharmacy because I like being that staple and that face of a community.
Q: How did your mapping project come about?
A: I wanted to prove this talking point—people often say that 90% of Americans live within five miles of pharmacy—but it’s difficult to find how that stat came to be. Figuring there’s a gap in the literature, I got together with some folks from the Department of Geology and Environmental Science here at Pitt—
they’re the mapping experts—and some of my colleagues at the School of Pharmacy. We assumed then that the COVID-19 vaccines would be given at community pharmacies, so we wrote a white paper that talked about pharmacy locations, when vaccines would be available and predicted pharmacies would be a place where they would be distributed and administered. That paper came out two or three days before the emergency use authorization was granted for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It was a very exciting time to have that analysis come out, and then see people look to it for vaccine planning initiatives.
Since then, we’ve applied the mapping to lots of different things that you can do at the community pharmacy. We’re able to apply where the maps are and to show that, when things are available at a community pharmacy, people can access them better.
Q: What do you wish more people knew about the role of pharmacists?
A: Pharmacy is an untapped resource and profession. We’re well trained. We’re the folks who get the most education on medications. And so part of our professional identity as pharmacists is as the medication experts, but we’re also health care providers and clinicians. When we think of pharmacists in this traditional dispensing role, that’s a very narrow view of what pharmacists are doing now.
Since COVID-19, there’s been a huge spotlight on our profession. We have an opportunity right now to capitalize on this limelight so that people can see us as clinicians and providers and people who can make a difference in public health. And I think our students are starting to see that, too. That’s part of the reason they’re attracted to pharmacy.