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. 2025 Mar 1;13(2):37.
doi: 10.3390/pharmacy13020037.

Pharmaceutical Public Health: A Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Pharmacy Professionals' Advanced Roles in Public Health, Including the Barriers and Enablers

Diane Ashiru-Oredope  1   2 , Roeann Osman  1 , Adeola H Ayeni  3 , Eleanor J Harvey  1 , Maria Nasim  1 , Emma Wright  4 , Christina Narh  5 , Uju Okereke  6 , Tasmin Harrison  7 , Christopher Garland  8 , Cecilia Pyper  7 , Andrew Evans  9 , Marion Bennie  10
Affiliations

Pharmaceutical Public Health: A Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Pharmacy Professionals' Advanced Roles in Public Health, Including the Barriers and Enablers

Diane Ashiru-Oredope et al. Pharmacy (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: In the UK and globally, pharmacy professionals (pharmacists and pharmacy technicians) contribute to the delivery of local and national public or population health interventions. The existing literature on pharmaceutical public health predominantly focuses on micro-level activities, primarily describing community pharmacies delivering public health interventions to individuals. There is little-known evidence on pharmacy professionals' involvement in delivering public health interventions at meso- (e.g., organisational) and macro (national/policy) levels, nor to what extent pharmacy professionals have specialist/advanced roles within public health practice. This study specifically explored pharmacy professionals' specialist/advanced roles within public health as well as the opportunities and barriers to career development. The analyses of this mixed-methods study makes a series of important recommendations for future action.

Methods: This study included two independent cross-sectional electronic surveys for pharmacy professionals and public health professionals, a call for evidence, and two workshops to develop recommendations.

Results: Pharmacy professionals (n = 128) and public health professionals (n = 54) across the UK participated in the surveys. Most of the Pharmacy Professionals respondents were female (70%), pharmacists (85%), working in primary (33%) or secondary (25%) care settings, mainly based in England (75%), and most (63%) lacked formal public health qualifications although they were involved in a diverse range of public health interventions. The public health professionals were mostly females (67%), practicing in England (58%). Both professional groups identified opportunities and barriers to pharmacy professionals' involvement in public health. Almost half of the public health professionals respondents (44%) stated that they had a pharmacy professional working as part of their current public health teams. Eighty-seven percent of public health professional respondents (45/52) agreed that having pharmacists or pharmacy technicians specialising in public health would be beneficial or very beneficial. Most of the documents, reports, and case histories provided through the call for evidence were unpublished. The workshops generated 94 recommendation statements, highlighting collaboration and the need to acknowledge pharmacy professionals' contributions to public health.

Conclusion: The recommendations for strategic action at meso- and macro-levels included three main themes: adopting a national strategic approach to pharmaceutical public health, including improving commissioning; formalising pharmaceutical public health workforce development; and promoting further evidence-based pharmaceutical public health research and development.

Keywords: CORE20PLUS; community pharmacy; emergency preparedness resilience and response; health inequalities; pharmaceutical public health; pharmacoequity; pharmacy; policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

D.A.-O. is employed by UK Health Security Agency (previously Public Health England) and was commissioned in 2020 by the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, NHS England, on behalf of the Chief Pharmaceutical Officers across all four UK nations, to lead the project. Tasmin Harrison and Cecilia Pyper are associates of PHAST, commissioned to collaborate with D.A.-O. to conduct an evidence review (not included in this manuscript) and call for evidence (reported in the manuscript). All other authors have no conflicts to declare and contributed their time to the project. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the individual contributors, or their affiliated organisations.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Domains of public health (reproduced with permission from Ashiru-Oredope, Population and public health, Pharmacy Magazine, https://www.pharmacymagazine.co.uk/cpd-modules/population-and-public-health) (accessed on 17 January 2025).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Micro-, meso-, and macro-level public health activities of pharmacy professionals.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The sectors pharmacy respondents work in.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Public/population health areas (non-COVID-19) that best describe the work pharmacy professionals were involved in or leading on.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Areas of public health that benefit would be achieved by having pharmacy professionals working directly as part of the public health team.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Number of documents, reports, and case histories identified and aligned with eight themes.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Summary of barrier themes and opportunity themes identified from surveys and recommendations from workshop participants at micro-, meso-, and macro levels.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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