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Not only does CVS heavily concentrate its stores in whiter, wealthier areas, CVS offers lower levels of service in the stores they do operate in low-income communities. CVS is far more likely to allocate time- and money-saving conveniences like 24-hour stores and in-store medical clinics to affluent and majority-white areas than to communities of color and lower income areas.

CVS 24-Hour Stores: Convenient for Some

24-hour stores are more than a convenience, they are a necessity for “those with more urgent needs, such as patients released from hospitals during the night in need of pain medication, and parents whose sick child needs a prescription.”  Yet CVS has fewer 24-hour stores available to those who live in city centers, the least affluent communities and those with large shares of people of color.

• Greater Detroit: CVS operates 44 stores that are open 24 hours a day in Greater Detroit but only five are located in the City of Detroit.
  
  
• New York Metro area: There are just three 24-hour stores in communities with median incomes less than $40,000.
  
  At the same time, there are ten 24-hour stores in the highest-income communities – those with median income less than $80,000 – although there are half as many people living in these areas as in lower-income areas. 
  
  CVS operates seventeen 24-hour stores in New York City but not a single one in an area where people of color are the majority. But in the whitest parts of New York City –where fewer than 10 percent of residents are people of color—40 percent of CVS stores are open 24 hours.
  
  
• Baltimore/Washington, D.C. corridor: CVS has nearly twice as many 24-hour stores in the wealthiest as the least affluent communities, on a per-person basis.
  
  
• Greater Los Angeles: Nearly a quarter of Greater Los Angeles stores are open 24 hours a day, but not one of the 11 stores in communities where 80 percent of residents are people of color offer these most convenient hours.  Yet, four of the ten stores in areas that are less than ten percent nonwhite are open 24 hours.
  
  
• The Philadelphia Area: More than half of the Philadelphia area’s population lives in communities that are majority people of color, but there is not a single 24-hour CVS in those communities. Yet one in six CVS pharmacies in the Philadelphia area is open 24 hours in majority white communities; and in the City of Philadelphia, it is one in four.

Minute Clinic Locations By Percent People of Color

People of color face severely limited access to MinuteClinics:

• Greater Los Angeles:  CVS operates 40 MinuteClinics in Greater Los Angeles but there are three times as many per person in majority white areas than in other areas.
  
  
• Phoenix: Just under half of Greater Phoenix residents live in communities where at least 20 percent of residents are people of color, yet none of the 11 MinuteClinics in the area operate in these communities.

MinuteClinics scarce in low and moderate income communities:

• Greater Houston: While more than half of all Greater Houston residents live in areas with annual median incomes below $50,000, only one in ten MinuteClinics are located in these low- to moderate-income communities.
  
  
• New York Metro Area: While 47 percent of the population lives in communities with median household incomes below $50,000, only 3 of the 32 MinuteClinics, or nine percent, operate in these areas.
  
  
• South Florida: There is the same number of MinuteClinics in communities where the median income is greater than $80,000 and where it is below $40,000 in South Florida, but there are more than 16 times as many residents in these lower income areas than in the wealthier ones – in other words, there are 16 times as many MinuteClinics per person in the wealthiest areas.