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Objective. To describe the landscape of well-being content inclusion across schools and colleges of pharmacy in the United States and Canada through identification of content implementation, incorporation, and assessment. Methods. A cross-sectional survey was distributed to all accredited schools and colleges of pharmacy in the United States (n=143) and Canada (n=10). Survey questions included curricular and cocurricular timing, frequency, assessment strategies, and support for well-being initiatives, using a framework of eight dimensions (pillars) of wellness to categorize content. Results. Descriptive data analyses were applied to 99 completed surveys (65%), 89 (62%) in the United States and 10 (100%) in Canada. Well-being content was most prevalent within the cocurricular realm and incorporated into didactic and elective more than experiential curricula. The most content came from intellectual, emotional, and physical pillars, and the least content came from financial, spiritual, and environmental pillars. Less than 50% of schools and colleges of pharmacy include well-being within their strategic plans or core values. Funding is primarily at the level of the university (59%) or the school or college of pharmacy (59%). Almost half of respondents reported inclusion of some assessment, with a need for more training, expertise, and standardization. Conclusion. Survey results revealed a wide range of implementation and assessment of well-being programs across the United States and Canada. These results provide a reference point for the state of well-being programs that can serve as a call to action and research across the Academy., (© 2023 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.)

Objectives: To implement and assess a first-year pharmacy student group research project that provided practical hands-on application and reinforced the curricula of concurrent didactic courses., Design: Groups of 6 to 7 students chose a public health topic based on the Healthy People 2010 Priority Areas and created a survey instrument. Faculty facilitated mock institutional review board (IRB) review sessions which provided teams with ongoing feedback and refinement recommendations before each team administered their survey instrument to a predefined population. Data analysis, formal written reports, and oral presentations were presented to peers and project faculty members., Assessment: Teams complied with the requirements of the mock IRB, effectively applied basic research principles learned in class, collected survey data, performed inferential statistical analyses on the data, , and presented their project findings. Two-hundred six of 210 students (98%) reported feeling satisfied with both the results of their project and the accomplishments of their team., Conclusions: Teams applied a varied skill set including primary literature evaluation, basic research principles, statistics, public speaking, and peer collaboration in conducting a public health research project. First-year pharmacy students may benefit from participation in a collaborative research project that provides hands-on application of material being taught in didactic courses.

Objectives: The authors examined data for 7,784 Latino, Asian, and non-Latino white Medi-Cal beneficiaries with schizophrenia to determine the relationship between patients' preferred language for mental health services--English, Spanish, or an Asian language--and their adherence to treatment with antipsychotic medications., Methods: Data reflected 31,560 person-years from 1999 to 2004. Pharmacy records were analyzed to assess medication adherence by use of the medication possession ratio (MPR). Clients were defined as nonadherent (MPR<.5), partially adherent (MPR=.5-<.8), or adherent (MPR=.8-1.1) or as an excess filler of prescriptions (MPR<1.1). Regression models were used to examine adherence, hospitalization, and costs by race-ethnicity and language status., Results: Latinos with limited English proficiency were more likely than English-proficient Latinos to be medication adherent (41% versus 36%; p<.001) and less likely to be excess fillers (15% versus 20%; p<.001). Asians with limited English proficiency were less likely than English-proficient Asians to be adherent (40% versus 45%; p=.034), more likely to be nonadherent (29% versus 22%; p<.001), and less likely to be excess fillers (13% versus 17%; p=.004). When analyses controlled for adherence and comorbidities, clients with limited English proficiency had lower rates of hospitalization and lower health care costs than English-proficient and white clients., Conclusions: Adherence to antipsychotic medications varied by English proficiency among and within ethnic groups. Policies supporting the training of bilingual and multicultural providers from ethnic minority groups and interventions that capitalize on patients' existing social support networks may improve adherence to treatment in linguistically diverse populations.