This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Medical Practice, Other  • Primary Care/ Family Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Craig Evan Pollack, MD, MHS; Katrina Armstrong, MD, MSCE

Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(10):945-949.

Background  The extent to which retail clinics provide access to care for underserved populations remains largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether retail clinics tend to be located in census tracts with higher medical need.

Methods  The locations of retail clinics as of July 1, 2008, were mapped and linked to the 2000 US Census and 2008 Health Resources and Services Administration data. Bivariate analyses and logistic regression models with random effects were used to compare the characteristics of census tracts with and without retail clinics. To determine whether retail clinics followed the underlying distribution of chain stores, the location of clinics conditional on there being a chain store was analyzed in 6 counties.

Results  Of the 932 retail clinics, 930 were successfully mapped. Eighteen states had no retail clinics, and 17 states had 25 or more clinics. Within counties with at least 1 retail clinic, census tracts with retail clinics had a lower black population percentage, lower poverty rates, and higher median incomes and were less likely to be medically underserved areas/populations compared with census tracts without retail clinics. Similarly, stores with retail clinics were less likely to be located in medically underserved areas compared with stores without retail clinics.

Conclusion  Retail clinics are currently located in more advantaged neighborhoods, which may make them less accessible for those most in need.

Author Affiliations: The Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (Dr Pollack), Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (Drs Pollack and Armstrong), and Abramson Cancer Center and Division of General Internal Medicine, School of Medicine (Dr Armstrong), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Philadelphia VA Medical Center, Philadelphia (Dr Pollack).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLES

In This Issue of Archives of Internal Medicine
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(10):920.
FULL TEXT  

The Geographic Accessibility of Retail Clinics for Underserved Populations—Invited Commentary
Barbara Starfield
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(10):950-951.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

The Geographic Accessibility of Retail Clinics for Underserved Populations—Invited Commentary
Mark D. Smith and Margaret A. Laws
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(10):951-953.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT