CAPS Town Hall INSIGHTS Lecture Series (March 5th, 2024)
Posted March 1, 2024CAPS Developmental Core Presents:
Dima Qato, MPH, PhD
Hygeia Centennial Chair and Associate Professor
Director, Program on Medicines and Public Health
University of Southern California School of Pharmacy
Senior Fellow, USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics
Pharmacy Deserts and Disparities in Pharmacy Access to PrEP in Black/Latinx Neighborhoods
Tuesday, March 5th, 2024
11:00am – Noon PT [2-3pm ET]
Zoom Meeting
About INSIGHTS (Innovative Non-traditional healthcare Settings in HIV research lecture Series): The purpose of this lecture series is to provide the community of HIV researchers with space and time to hear about innovative research conducted outside of traditional healthcare settings. This research includes any HIV-related interventions that can be applied to HIV research, including those that are conducted outside of the clinic (e.g., pharmacy, patients’ homes, CBO, mobile vans unrelated to the clinic, outdoors), can increase access to medications without involving clinics, or can enhance PrEP or ART adherence and persistence without clinic input.
This lecture series is funded by the UCSF CFAR Boost award.
Learning Objectives:
· To discuss the problem of disparities in pharmacy deserts and its implications on disparities in pharmacy access to PrEP in the context of expanding pharmacist prescriptive authority for PrEP in the U.S.
· To describe disparities in unmet PrEP need at the neighborhood level in urban EHE priority areas.
Dima Mazen Qato, PharmD, MPH, PhD, serves as the Hygeia Centennial Chair and Associate Professor (with tenure) and Director of the Program on Medicines and Public Health at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and is a Senior Fellow with the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. Dr. Qato received her PharmD from UIC, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a PhD in Public Health from the University of Illinois School of Public Health. Dr. Qato’s research focuses on access and safe use of medicines and pharmaceutical policy both in the U.S. and globally and seeks to better understand why medications are used, or not used, and how they can and should be used in the population to promote equity, longevity and good health. She utilizes population-based methods to better understand the underlying mechanisms responsible for the use, underuse and unsafe use of medications, how these patterns may influence health outcomes and health disparities, and what can be done from a community and policy perspective to address these growing public health problems.
Dr. Qato was a National Academy of Medicine Pharmacy Fellow, a RWJF Clinical Scholar and a US Fulbright Scholar focusing on access to medicines in refugee communities in Jourdan. She has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA and Health Affairs. Her seminal research on Pharmacy Deserts and closures has contributed important insights to policy makers on the role of pharmacies in public health and health disparities. Her work on polypharmacy, including drug-drug interactions, was awarded the 2017 American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) Literature Award in Drug Therapy Research. Dr. Qato’s research has received widespread media coverage including in The New York Times, NPR, PBS News, Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNN, BBC, and National Geographic and is funded by various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and has also influenced national and state policies around medication access and safety. Dr. Qato’s goal is to promote public accountability to better ensure access to, and safe use of, medications at the national, state and local levels. In an effort to achieve this goal, Dr. Qato is interested in incorporating the concept of ‘essential medicines’ in payment and regulatory decision-making in ongoing health care reform.
This presentation is hosted by CAPS/DPS/PRC Town Hall and the CAPS Developmental Core as part of a Special Lecture Series:
INSIGHTS Lecture Series: Innovative Non-traditional Healthcare Settings in HIV Research
Town Hall Chair: Parya Saberi, PharmD
