Increasing Community Pharmacists’ Role in Addressing the Opioid Crisis

Drug overdose deaths in the United States are at a catastrophic level and increasing. A 2022 study released by Stanford-Lancet report predicts the opioid epidemic will claim 1.22 million U.S. lives the remainder of this decade without new efforts to stem the crisis and calls for sweeping reforms to mitigate the opioid crisis.

Community pharmacists are in a unique frontline position to assist their community by providing education about the risk related to opioids, evaluating prescription drug monitoring programs, performing medication therapy, and advocating for harm reduction strategies. Pharmacists are largely an underutilized resource, suggesting a more engaging and proactive role is required to assist their communities with this healthcare crisis. Community pharmacists have an opportunity to expand their network and share their extensive knowledge about medicine by collaborating with their local public health department (DPH) to provide public education, become involved in the community-wide events, and allocate outreach materials. In the study that will be presented in this session, more than half of pharmacists indicated that they do not currently participate in any community outreach, demonstrating a large gap that can be bridged by collaboration with the DPH.