Two thousand Retail Health Clinics Provided Walk-In Health Services Mostly in Metropolitan Areas

There were about 2,000 retail health clinics (RHCs) in the United States between 2018 and 2020 that provided convenient health services inside pharmacies, grocery stores and supercenter retailers but most were in metropolitan areas, according to a new database created by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

Most (950) of these RHCs were in the South region and among divisions, the South Atlantic had the largest number (550).

The Linked Retail Health Clinics (LiRHC) database – part of the Census Bureau’s EHealth Program – is the first step in a multi-phase collaboration to identify RHC locations.

Future phases will examine populations living near retail health clinics, other health care providers located near these clinics, and the business characteristics of retailers that have RHCs.

About 97% of RHCs were in metropolitan statistical areas (which have at least one urbanized area with a population of 50,000 or more) rather than in less densely populated areas.

This new longitudinal LiRHC (pronounced “lyric”) database can help us understand the business characteristics of retailers with RHCs, the socio-economic characteristics of people living near RHCs and other sources of health care such as physicians, urgent care centers and emergency departments near RHCs.

RHCs are in-store clinics that provide health care and treat minor illnesses and injuries. They can be an important source of ambulatory health care across the United States, especially if they are the only available source of health care in an area.

NCHS reports that in 2019, 1 in 4 children and nearly 3 in 10 adults visited an RHC or urgent care center.

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