Pharmacists for Prevention (P4P): Harnessing the role of pharmacists in ending the HIV epidemic through collaboration with pharmacy schools

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Access points to evidence-based HIV prevention services like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are limited in the South, the epicenter of the US HIV epidemic. Given their ubiquity in communities across the country, pharmacists and pharmacies are uniquely positioned to increase access to PrEP. Unfortunately, pharmacists lack the skills needed to provide PrEP at their community-facing points of care, a major barrier to leveraging the pharmacy profession towards ending the Southern HIV epidemic. To address this barrier, comprehensive instruction of pharmacists in HIV prevention as part of their professional training is a compelling approach to systematically closing the knowledge deficit that hinders Southern pharmacists from incorporating PrEP into their clinical practice. Furthermore, equipping pharmacists in training with the skillset to create and develop innovative approaches to pharmacy-based PrEP delivery remains an important gap in efforts to maximize pharmacy’s contribution to mitigating the region’s HIV epidemic. To date, a comprehensive pharmacy-school based curriculum in HIV prevention has never been developed. Our proposed project, Pharmacists for Prevention (P4P): Harnessing the role of pharmacists in ending the HIV epidemic through collaboration with pharmacy schools will leverage our prior work in pharmacist-focused instruction in HIV prevention by adapting, implementing, and evaluating a comprehensive curriculum that includes HIV epidemiology, HIV prevention, and implementation science content across six, pharmacy schools in the South. All partner schools are located either in Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) priority jurisdictions or in areas with high HIV prevalence (> 20 incident cases per 100,0000). Specifically, in Aim 1, we will partner with our six sites to assess the feasibility of incorporating instruction on HIV prevention into their existing curricula. Aim 2, guided by the ADAPT-ITT framework, will feature a systematic adaptation of an online pharmacist-focused HIV prevention curriculum (developed previously by our group) into each school’s curricular sequence. Lastly in Aim 3, we will implement the program over two years with the potential to reach 1,200 pharmacy students and conduct a comprehensive, mixed-methods evaluation on the short-term, mid-term, and long-term impact of the program. We will specifically assess students’ knowledge and willingness to integrate HIV prevention services into their clinical practice (primary outcome). Comparative evaluations will be conducted on an inter-cohort (vs. prior pharmacy school class) and intra-cohort basis (pre-post evaluation). We will also examine long-term outcomes such as self-reported PrEP prescriptions/referrals in the first year of clinical practice and number of students who select a career in research, public health, or HIV/infectious diseases. The successful completion of this project will provide an evidence base for an HIV prevention curriculum sequence that can be scaled across pharmacy schools in the South and beyond.