Q&A: Raising Awareness About Maternity Care Deserts Among Community Pharmacists

Over 2 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 years in the United States live in an area without obstetric services or providers. These areas, called maternity care deserts, have increased over the last several years and lead to a higher prevalence of conditions associated with poorer health and birth outcomes.¹ Pharmacists, as the most accessible members of health care teams, are in a key position to provide the needed care in these areas.

Q&A: Raising Awareness About Maternity Care Deserts Among Community Pharmacists / BazziBa - stock.adobe.com

Drug Topics sat down with Natalie DiPietro Mager, PharmD, PhD, professor of pharmacy practice at Ohio Northern University, to discuss the role of pharmacists in addressing maternal health in maternity care deserts and what can be done to raise awareness and increase education among pharmacists about maternal health services and maternity care deserts.

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Drug Topics: What do you see as the primary role of pharmacists in addressing maternal health in maternity care deserts?

Natalie DiPietro Mager, PharmD, PhD: I think pharmacists really have a key role to play in ensuring comprehensive and continuity of care for patients. Really trying to ensure that patients have equitable access to care, and it's important that patients have care throughout their entire life course. You know, once someone is pregnant, it's almost too late sometimes to address some of the most important chronic conditions or health behaviors that might really impact their pregnancy and the birth outcomes. We really, as pharmacists, are well positioned to work with patients in what we call the preconception or interconception period, which is before or between pregnancies. That's just as important as supporting patients who are pregnant and postpartum. We have kind of unique roles that we can play in each of those areas.

As we see more patients being older than they used to be at the time of pregnancy, more patients are entering pregnancy with chronic conditions, and we find that often those chronic conditions are not well controlled, especially high blood pressure or diabetes. There are definitely steps pharmacists can take with disease state management. We can help with preventative services patients might need, like vaccines. Specific to maternity care deserts, there's data from the March of Dimes that indicate that women in these areas have higher rates or higher prevalence of high blood pressure, tobacco use and substance use disorder, and those are all things that pharmacists are very well positioned to address.

I think we do have a key role to play for patients when they especially don't have other options that are logistically feasible for them to get to. Typically, their community pharmacy is going to be closer and an access and a touch point that's going to be easier for them.

Drug Topics: What can be done to raise awareness and increase education among pharmacists about maternal health services and maternity care deserts?

DiPietro Mager: I think first, pharmacists really need to identify if they are practicing in a maternity care desert. You can go out to the March of Dimes website and search the county that you work in to see if it is a maternity care desert or a low access area. But even if it's not, just because there may be a sufficient number of practitioners, that doesn't mean everybody in that geographic region has access to them. So again, the pharmacist might still be an accessible touch point for patients, but just understanding kind of the level of healthcare systems that you have in your county will be a good first step.

Secondly, do kind of an environmental scan of your county to better understand what are the assets. So not only clinical services, but also preventive services and services that address social health needs. You know, a large driver for maternal health is socioeconomic status and the social determinants of health. Understanding what are the community based organizations on your practice site? What are faith based organizations, or other organizations that do work in the community, that might help fill needs for your patients? Meeting some of their social health needs is going to be really important. And then understanding a way to kind of triage or link patients to both the clinical health services and the social health services that they may need will be key.

Once you've gathered all this information, talk to people, talk to your co-workers, talk to your staff, make people aware, so that all interactions with people of reproductive age, you can kind of be thinking about this mindset of other needs you might be addressing for the patients. And then, of course, there's always a role for continuing education for both pharmacists and technicians. In fact, the Ohio Pharmacists Association in April has made maternity care deserts as one of the topics that they will be discussing and raising awareness among pharmacists in Ohio about what services they can be providing. So, talk to your state pharmacy Association, suggest this as programming for different organizations that put on continuing education programs, and then attend it and learn from it.

And finally, share. If you are doing any of these services in your pharmacy, share that information with other people. Share your best practices, your lessons learned, so that we can really kind of grow this and get that critical mass of people who are working in this area.

READ MORE: Women's Health Resource Center

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References

1. Duodu M, DiPietro Mager N. Provision of maternal health services among Ohio community pharmacists practicing in maternity care deserts. J Am Pharm Assoc (2003).