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Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access
Rapid diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is key to guiding social distancing orders and containing emerging disease clusters by contact tracing and isolation. However, communities throughout the US do not yet have adequate access to tests. Pharmacies are already engaged in testing, but there is capacit...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523153/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32995814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.20185090 |
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author | Risanger, Simon Singh, Bismark Morton, David Meyers, Lauren Ancel |
author_facet | Risanger, Simon Singh, Bismark Morton, David Meyers, Lauren Ancel |
author_sort | Risanger, Simon |
collection | PubMed |
description | Rapid diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is key to guiding social distancing orders and containing emerging disease clusters by contact tracing and isolation. However, communities throughout the US do not yet have adequate access to tests. Pharmacies are already engaged in testing, but there is capacity to greatly increase coverage. Using a facility location optimization model and willingness-to-travel estimates from US National Household Travel Survey data, we find that if COVID-19 testing became available in all US pharmacies, an estimated 94% of the US population would be willing to travel to obtain a test, if warranted. Whereas the largest chain provides high coverage in densely populated states, like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut, independent pharmacies would be required for sufficient coverage in Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. If only 1,000 pharmacies in the US are selected to provide testing, judicious selection, using our optimization model, provides estimated access to 29 million more people than selecting pharmacies simply based on population density. COVID-19 testing through pharmacies can improve access across the US. Even if only few pharmacies offer testing, judicious selection of specific sites can simplify logistics and improve access. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7523153 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75231532020-09-30 Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access Risanger, Simon Singh, Bismark Morton, David Meyers, Lauren Ancel medRxiv Article Rapid diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is key to guiding social distancing orders and containing emerging disease clusters by contact tracing and isolation. However, communities throughout the US do not yet have adequate access to tests. Pharmacies are already engaged in testing, but there is capacity to greatly increase coverage. Using a facility location optimization model and willingness-to-travel estimates from US National Household Travel Survey data, we find that if COVID-19 testing became available in all US pharmacies, an estimated 94% of the US population would be willing to travel to obtain a test, if warranted. Whereas the largest chain provides high coverage in densely populated states, like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut, independent pharmacies would be required for sufficient coverage in Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. If only 1,000 pharmacies in the US are selected to provide testing, judicious selection, using our optimization model, provides estimated access to 29 million more people than selecting pharmacies simply based on population density. COVID-19 testing through pharmacies can improve access across the US. Even if only few pharmacies offer testing, judicious selection of specific sites can simplify logistics and improve access. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2020-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7523153/ /pubmed/32995814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.20185090 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Risanger, Simon Singh, Bismark Morton, David Meyers, Lauren Ancel Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title | Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title_full | Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title_fullStr | Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title_full_unstemmed | Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title_short | Selecting pharmacies for COVID-19 testing to ensure access |
title_sort | selecting pharmacies for covid-19 testing to ensure access |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523153/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32995814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.20185090 |
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