Geographic proximity of pharmacies and supermarkets in Australia: a national spatial analysis

Abstract Introduction A recent Australian health report proposed allowing pharmacies to operate within supermarkets to improve convenience, competition and medicine access. The existing geographic relationship between pharmacies and supermarkets has not been well characterised. Aim To quantify the geographic proximity of Australian pharmacies and supermarkets and examine variation by remoteness. Method Pharmacy locations were obtained from the National HealthDirect Health Facilities dataset and supermarket locations from OpenStreetMap. Straight-line distances were calculated from each pharmacy to the nearest supermarket and vice versa. Results were stratified by Modified Monash Model (MMM) 2023 category. We calculated the proportion of supermarkets with one, two or at least three pharmacies within 1 km. Sensitivity analysis used the nearest pharmacy identified in either dataset. Analyses were descriptive and not population weighted. Results The analysis included 5,526 pharmacies and 5,548 supermarkets. Across MM1-MM5 ((metropolitan areas, regional centres and rural towns), median distances in either direction ranged from 94 to 151 m and 80.0% to 92.5% were within 1 km of the other business type. In MM6 (remote communities), median pharmacy-to-supermarket and supermarket-to-pharmacy distances were 102 m and 419 m, respectively; in MM7 (very remote communities) they were 175 m and 65.2 km. In MM7, 75.5% of pharmacies were within 1 km of a supermarket, compared with 36.1% of supermarkets within 1 km of a pharmacy. At least two pharmacies were located within 1 km of 63.4% of metropolitan (MMM1) supermarkets, 11.2% of MM6 supermarkets and 2.7% of MM7 supermarkets. In the sensitivity analysis, the median supermarket-to-pharmacy distance in MM7 was 20.2 km and 43.5% of supermarkets were within 1 km of a pharmacy. Conclusion Pharmacies and supermarkets were geographically close throughout metropolitan, regional and most rural Australia. Supermarket co-location is therefore unlikely to substantially improve medicine access in these areas. In very remote communities, many supermarkets were not close to a pharmacy, despite most pharmacies being near a supermarket. However, existing pharmacist workforce constraints may limit the feasibility of supermarket-based pharmacies, regardless of location.