Meta Data Name: Access to Pharmacies
Last Modified: January 6, 2021
Author: Susan Paykin
Access04 at 2 spatial scales. Files can be found here.
- Access04_T
- Access04_Z
Pharmacy locations were sourced from the InfoGroup (now Data Axle) 2019 Business and Consumer Historical Datafile, available through the University of Chicago Library.
Zip code tract area (ZCTA) and Census Tract files were sourced from the US Census Bureau, TIGER/Line Shapefiles 2018.
The source InfoGroup dataset includes the business name, location (address, city, state, census tract, latitude, longitude), NAICS Code, and NAICS Code Description variables.
Data was downloaded and sourced from InfoGroup's historical dataset, filtered for pharmacies via NAICS class code 4461100, cleaned, and then converted to spatial data. Next, the nearest resource analysis was conducted using minimum Euclidean distance as a proxy variable for access. This analysis included calculating centroids for all U.S. census tracts and ZCTAs, identifying the nearest pharmact to each tract/zip centroid, then measuring the distance in miles.
| Variable | Variable ID in .csv | Description |
|---|---|---|
| GEOID | GEOID | Unique 11-digit GEOID, including state, county, and tract IDs |
| State | STATEFP | Unique 2-digit ID for states |
| County | COUNTYFP | 3-digit ID for counties |
| Census Tract | TRACTCE | 6-digit ID for census tracts |
| ZIP Code Tract Area (ZCTA) | ZCTA | Unique 5-digit assigned ZCTA, usually same as ZIP Code |
| Access to pharmacies | minDisRx | Euclidean distance from tract or zip centroid to nearest pharmacy, in miles |
Euclidean distance or straight-line is a simple approximation of access or travel from an origin centroid to the nearest hospital. It is not a precise calculation of real travel times or distances.
The final dataset includes US states and Washington, D.C., but does not include territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Palau). ZCTA and tract centroids are not population-weighted.