Grant: Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) program

The current challenges across the country in accessing a family physician have resulted in overcrowded emergency departments and delays in care. The new Pharmacist Prescribing for Minor Ailments and Contraception policy (PPMAC) in British Columbia (BC) was implemented to ease pressures on the province's healthcare system. However, even though similar policies have been in use for about ten years in some provinces, the impact of these services on the health system has never been measured. The policy may also improve equitable access to care, but prior studies have suggested that individuals experiencing socioeconomic disadvantages have less access to pharmacist services. This may worsen pre-existing health inequalities among these disadvantaged groups, which include women, rural residents, visible minority groups, lower income individuals, among others. As such, it would be important to understand 1) what the impact of the PPMAC policy is on health system burden and 2) if the level of impact differs across socioeconomic groups. This research will describe changes in medication use, physician visits, and emergency room visits after PPMAC was implemented to understand how the policy is impacting the health system. The impact will be assessed in the three most commonly treated PPMAC conditions - contraception, urinary tract infections, and pink eye. The changes will be described by each condition for the overall population, then for various socioeconomic groups to understand if the level of impact is different across communities. We will check these findings with another study to make sure that other efforts to improve care access following the COVID-19 pandemic did not affect the results. Findings from this work will allow policymakers in BC and other provinces to make informed decision on whether changes to pharmacist prescribing policies are needed. It will also aid future work in identifying the reasons why the policy may be impacting various groups differently.