University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (07/02/25) Daly, Caroline

As part of the Rural Research Alliance of Community Pharmacies (RURAL-CP), pharmacy professors and students work together on funded research studies. The program is the only multistate practice-based research network for rural community pharmacies in the United States. Student pharmacists completing rotations at rural community pharmacies also gain experience in dispensing medications, counseling patients, and developing new initiatives like drug takeback programs or naloxone services. The program includes 155 pharmacies across seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It aims to improve rural health equity by enabling network pharmacies and pharmacy schools to conduct high-quality research on how medications are used and how pharmacies operate in these communities. "We connect with rural pharmacies and give them a voice,” said Delesha Carpenter, pharmacy school professor at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and executive vice chair in the division of pharmaceutical outcomes and policy. Through joint research projects, pharmacists at the colleges explore areas like vaccine development and suicide prevention. They also study the financial challenges threatening rural pharmacies and work to identify methods for these pharmacies to remain viable and serve their communities. RURAL-CP hopes to add more pharmacies to its roster. "We hope to have these rural pharmacies provide more services and be a larger health care resource in their communities,” said Carpenter. “The goal is to improve access to health care in rural areas, reducing rural health disparities and having trained health care providers closer to residents in those communities.”

Read More