Pharmacists at the Frontline of Public Health: Workforce Training, Community Campaigns, and Integrated Patient Care

Pharmacists and community pharmacies stand at the forefront of public health education and patient-centered care, uniquely positioned to significantly impact public health at scale. With growing challenges such as chronic disease management, clinical inertia, health literacy gaps, and persistent stigma around many diagnoses, pharmacists are becoming vital in ensuring equitable access, facilitating earlier detection, and promoting improved self-management, especially for underserved populations. Learning from the recent surge in mass vaccination campaigns and the enhanced synergy with primary care, this Research Topic aims to showcase current evidence and stimulate innovation in pharmacist-led public health initiatives, focusing diligently on training, community campaigns, and real-world patient care, including counselling all patients with chronic conditions, especially vulnerable groups burdened by any kind of stigma.

This Research Topic explores how comprehensive pharmacist training and continuing professional development in public health competencies, but also good planning and change management can produce significant community health benefits. It will assess community pharmacy-based public health campaigns and their effectiveness in key areas such as tobacco cessation, cardiovascular health, women health, mental health, obesity treatment and vaccination uptake. Emphasis will be placed on redefining patient care models in community settings and integrating motivation, stigma reduction, mental health support, follow up and collaboration with other healthcare professionals to improve not only therapy outcomes, but also patients’ quality of life.

The importance of quality improvement and research on scaling pharmacist-delivered interventions and examining policies that underpin sustainable contributions will also be thoroughly discussed.

To gather further insights into pharmacist-led public health initiatives, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

o Evaluation of training and professional development in public health competencies

o Design and assessment of community pharmacy-based public health campaigns

o Implementation of new services in pharmacy practice

o Advancements in patient care models in community and primary settings

o Integration of services with specific focus of underserved and vulnerable groups within the pharmacy practice

o Implementation science and research on scaling pharmacy interventions

o Issues of equity, ethics, and community engagement in pharmacy practice, reducing stigma

o Exploration of policies and workforce development for sustained impact.

We invite contributions that critically assess quality improvement and explore sustainable pharmacist-led interventions and pertinent policies that uphold these advancements.

Topic Editor Arijana Meštrović is the founder of Pharma Expert, a private company for Education and Consultancy. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Community pharmacy, patient-centered care, health literacy, stigma reduction, vulnerable populations

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.