Rite Aid's bankruptcy plan stirs worries of new 'pharmacy deserts'

Rite Aid’s plan to close more stores as part of its bankruptcy process could hurt access to medicine and care, particularly in some majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods and in rural areas, experts say.

The drugstore chain said late Sunday that its voluntary Chapter 11 process will allow it to speed up its plan to close underperforming stores. The company runs more than 2,000 stores, mostly on the East and West coasts.

It said it doesn’t know yet which ones will close, but The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the company has proposed closing 400 to 500 of them.

When drugstore chains shutter stores, they often target locations in lower-income, Black and Latinx neighborhoods with people covered through government-funded insurance programs like Medicaid, said Dima Qato, a University of Southern California associate professor who studies pharmacy access.