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Advancing Pharmacy Practice Through Faculty-Funded Research Changing Opioid Prescribing through Academic Detailing A Student Ambassador Program to Improve COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Strategies on Campus HBCUs Partner with MHHD on a COVID-19 Initiative
Advancing Pharmacy Practice Through Faculty-Funded Research
Student Eustace Mua with Kelcey Kangla, Coordinator of Special Programs at the Worcester County Health Department
The United States’ drug-related overdose and deaths continues to worsen during the pandemic. There have been increases in drug overdose mortality as high as 27% compared to the year prior as a result of COVID-19. The economic instability, social isolation, increased mental stress, and limited access to addiction support and medications were contributing factors that led to a rise of opioidrelated deaths. Inappropriate and excessive prescribing of opioids by prescribers is central to the opioid crisis in America. Recent efforts to limit the availability of opioids include monitoring medications on the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and educational interventions to prescribers. An example of this is through academic detailing, a technique where healthcare professionals are educated about evidence-based information about opioid overdose to change their prescribing behavior. Through a grant funded by the Worcester County Health Department, Dr. Yen Dang’s rotation students will be involved in an academic detailing program to reduce opioid overdose on the Eastern Shore.
UMES third-year pharmacy students will be working with Worcester County Health Department community health workers and go to prescriber’s offices and pharmacies to educate them about opioid misuse. Educational visits may also occur online. Naloxone education, training, and prescribing will also be reviewed for patients who are at risk for overdose. Pharmacy students will also work with health department officials to deter providers from prescribing opioids for chronic pain and encourage the use of Maryland’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program to monitor any suspicious refill activity. The program will occur until June 2022.
A Student Ambassador Program to Improve COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Strategies on Campus
The American Colleges of Health Association’s (ACHA) Campus COVID-19 Vaccination and Mitigation (CoVAC) Initiative is a unique opportunity for campus leaders, including faculty, staff, and students, to address challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in support of healthy and thriving campus communities. The program aims to support institutions in need of resources to develop, implement, and maintain effective and innovative COVID-19 prevention and management strategies. This year, University of Maryland Eastern Shore School of Pharmacy was one of twenty schools across the nation to receive funding for COVID-19 risk mitigation
Minority populations have had disproportionate morbidity and mortality rates with COVID-19 compared to other racial groups. While there has been some research in this area, more information is needed to understand the underlying causes of this disparity so that effective interventions can be implemented. The Maryland Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities (MHHD) is partnering with Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs) in Maryland on a project to understand minority perceptions of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations in order to debunk misinformation. Additionally, the project determines barriers to getting COVID-19 tested and vaccinated among minorities and identifies the needs of persons who test positive. The project will last for 18 months and provides $100,000 per program entity.
efforts. The program, led by Drs. Yen Dang and Sean Vasaitis, will allow for pharmacy student ambassadors to create weekly videos featuring different topics to promote COVID-19 risk mitigation. Dr. Vasaitis says that “the pharmacy student ambassadors will help connect with a younger audience, promoting healthy COVID-19 behaviors among their peers”. These videos will be posted on Facebook and will focus on current campus COVID-19 policies (wearing masks and physical distancing), assessing personal COVID-19 risks and socializing safely, addressing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, making health care decisions, and coping with mental health challenges around COVID-19. The University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) School of Pharmacy is located in Somerset County, Maryland, a rural medically underserved county with the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the State and rising COVID-19 cases with Drs. Dang and Vasaitis are the the delta variant. Dr. Dang states, “This lead investigators for the ACHA initiative. program allows students to actively lead and engage their fellow peers during a real-world pandemic that is disproportionately affecting their community to reduce COVID-19 transmission cases in Maryland’s lowest vaccinated county.”
HBCUs Partner with MHHD on a COVID-19 Initiative
UMES SOP’s Dr. Rondall Allen, Miriam Purnell, Yen Dang, and Nkem Nonyel are the lead investigators for Wicomico and Dorchester County. The initiative determines the effectiveness of deployed Community Health Workers (CHWs) in engaging with and delivering services to targeted communities impacted by COVID-19. Currently, UMES is working with other Maryland HBCUs including Morgan State University, Coppin State University, and Bowie State University, to create assessment, tracking, and evaluation tools to measure CHW performance. These tools will also analyze attitudes and behaviors of service recipients across the Eastern Shore including CHWs and their organizations, community partners, and patients. (Left to right) Drs. Yen Dang, Miriam Purnell, Nkem Nonyel, and Rondall Allen are the principal investigators of the project.
