Following the definition of “food deserts” used by the US Department of Agriculture and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. This term is being used to improve access to healthy food for communities designated as “food deserts”. Thus, the term “pharmacy deserts” was adopted based on the concept of “food deserts” and refers to geographic areas that do not have access to a nearby pharmacy or where pharmaceutical services are weak and difficult to obtain (Pednekar and Peterson, 2018). The term “pharmacy desert” appears for the first time with Qato et al., (2014), who considers as if a community has more than 33% of the population living more than one mile (about 1600 meters) from a pharmacy. Main objectives were to identify areas that constitute “pharmacy deserts” and to select potential areas for new pharmacy locations in mainland Portugal. As secondary objectives we intend to analyse the disparities at the local level, understand if the populations are mostly at distances considered acceptable from a pharmacy and understand the accessibility of the elderly population to the community pharmacy network.N/
