Health equity in COVID-19 testing among patients of a large national pharmacy chain

September 11, 2024

IMPACT multiple principal investigator, Vincent Mor, PhD, and team published a recent article, Health equity in COVID-19 testing among patients of a large national pharmacy chain,  in Frontiers of Public Health, describing individuals who sought testing for COVID-19 at a national community pharmacy chain and to explored potential racial and ethnic inequities in testing access, positivity, and infection with emerging variants of concern.

Using data from a national database, the team conducted a cross-sectional study of individuals aged ≥18 who were tested for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) at a Walgreens pharmacy or Walgreen-affiliated mass testing site between May 1, 2021 and February 28, 2022. Positivity was defined as the proportion of positive tests among all administered tests. A total of 18,576,360 tests were analyzed.

Findings reflected that non-white individuals were more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and emerging variants of concern compared to White individuals. Additionally, the results demonstrate the feasibility of public-private collaborations with local pharmacies and pharmacy chains to support pandemic response and reach harder to reach populations with important health services. The full article is now available online at https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1422914.