$1.9-million boost for research into expansion of sexual health services in pharmacies

A research project focused on expanded delivery of sexual health services in pharmacies has received a $1.9-million boost from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. “The grant will be used to develop knowledge about how to scale, sustain, and pay for pharmacy-based sexual health services model projects,” said Kyle Wilby, associate professor and associate director of program evaluation at Dalhousie University’s College of Pharmacy. “Our project aims to understand the factors that go into sustaining research into practice, and to help provinces scale services up to a point where a patient could receive a full suite of sexual health services in pharmacies.” Wilby is co-leading the project along with Debbie Kelly, a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s School of Pharmacy and the principal applicant for the CIHR grant, according to an article on the Dalhousie University website. Patients from vulnerable and underserved populations—including those who are part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities or who have substance abuse problems—are more likely to face barriers to sexual health care, said Wilby. Many don’t have a regular primary care provider and often face discrimination within the health system. “In my research within the 2SLGBTQIA+ population, we’ve found that people have or have had, in the Maritime provinces in particular, negative experiences within healthcare settings where it doesn’t make them really want to go and seek care, so they delay care, and/or they avoid care,” Dr. Wilby says. Read: Real ideas for addressing healthcare needs of disadvantaged populations Providing an extensive range of sexual health services in pharmacy settings can improve access to these services for vulnerable patients and the rest of the general population, said Wilby. It has also been proven to reduce the strain on the primary healthcare system. “One of the key goals of this project is to build capacity and to help train students in research, and Dalhousie students will definitely be getting involved,” Dr. Wilby says. The project will assess the scalability of pharmacy-based sexual health services to determine the provinces’ level of readiness to implement this model of care. To conduct this assessment, the research team plans to consult pharmacists, pharmacy support staff, stakeholders, and patients to determine how the model can be made more accessible, and which factors are essential for its success. After another round of consultations, the research team will work to raise awareness of the importance of pharmacy-based sexual health services and to increase pharmacies’ capacity to deliver these services. The project builds on findings from four in-progress pharmacy-based sexual health services projects in Alberta, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Read: CPhA provides top 10 strategies to improve 2SLGBTQIA+ healthcare

$1.9-million boost for research into expansion of sexual health services in pharmacies

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