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Nearly three out of 10 U.S. drugstores that were open during the previous decade closed by 2021, new research shows.

Black and Latino neighborhoods were most vulnerable to the retail pharmacy closures, which can chip away at already limited , researchers said in a study published this week in Health Affairs.

The trend potentially gained momentum since the study's timeframe, because many drugstores are still struggling. In the past three years, the major chains Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌý closed hundreds of additional stores, and Rite Aid shrank as it went through a .

Drugstores have been dealing with , rising costs and changing customer shopping habits. The chains closed money-losing stores and transferred prescription files to more profitable locations.

The study found more than 29% of the nearly 89,000 retail U.S. pharmacies that operated between 2010 and 2020 closed by 2021. That amounts to more than 26,000 stores.

Researchers using data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs found the number of U.S. pharmacies actually increased from 2010 to 2017 because of store openings, but the pace of closings picked up starting in 2018.

They also highlighted which stores were more likely to close. Those include independent pharmacies, which were more likely than chain stores to be in Black, Latino and low-income neighborhoods.

Pharmacies in neighborhoods with higher rates of patients on government-funded Medicaid and Medicare also were at greater risk for closing, said Dima Qato, a University of Southern California pharmacy professor who was the study's lead author. Those programs tend to reimburse less than private health insurance.

Researchers also noted the exclusion of some pharmacies, particularly independent drugstores, from pharmacy benefit manager networks can hurt. That can mean fewer prescriptions and customers visit for those stores.

Retail drugstores can be important sources for vaccinations, contraception, overdose prevention and opioid use disorder treatments, in addition to prescriptions, Qato said.

She noted Black and Latino communities often have fewer pharmacies to begin with, so store closings hit residents of those communities particularly hard.

"There aren't many other options for them," she said.