Walgreens closed three of its pharmacies in Baltimore this past week as part of its plan to shutter about 1,200 stores over the next two to three years.

The store at St. Paul and Fayette Street, the Walgreens at North Avenue in East Baltimore and the location in Hampden have all closed their doors.

The closures exacerbate the trend of shrinking pharmacy access in the city. Two Rite Aids shut their doors last October.

Pharmacy deserts often impact low-income neighborhoods.

“Pharmacies bring a series of services to communities that go beyond the simple dispensing of medicines,” said Mariana Socal, an associate scientist at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The drug stores provide vaccinations, medical supplies and other necessary products for the surrounding public.

“When these pharmacies close the biggest impact is affordability of drugs,” Socal said. “Patients have to pay more to get transportation to a different place to get not a visit to their provider to change the prescription, or to pay more out of pocket because the new pharmacy is not in their network.”