Bridging Gaps in Preventative Care: Pharmacy Students' Impact through Point-Of-Care Testing and Education at Recovery Café Lafayette

Final-year student pharmacists Katherine and Jailyn served on the executive committee of Purdue’s chapter of the American Pharmacists Association–Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) as president and patient care vice president, respectively, during the 2023–2024 academic year. After striving for more community-based involvement with the APhA-ASP chapter, Katherine and Jailyn combined efforts and passions to serve the community by providing health services to a local community center. Preventative health services are vital for patients and also provide substantial benefit to students who are able to practice real-world counseling skills through these opportunities. Throughout the Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum at Purdue, Katherine and Jailyn learned the risks of uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. They also learned about point-of-care testing for these disease states through professional skills labs and lectures. Around 75 million people in the United States have high blood pressure, and 11 million of these cases are undiagnosed (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). Of the 38.4 million people in the world with type 2 diabetes, 22.8% of patients are undiagnosed. (Million Hearts, 2023). Lack of awareness of these disease states by the community was the driving force inspiring the health services provided from the student organization. Having the resources to provide point-of-care testing in the community supported by both the Purdue Service- Learning Grant and Purdue’s APhA-ASP chapter, Katherine and Jailyn organized health fairs focused on testing blood pressure, blood sugar, the average blood sugar over the past three months (Hemoglobin A1c), total cholesterol, and pulse oximetry. Providing these tests gave patients a snapshot of their health and helped them determine the most appropriate next steps for their health journey. Students were not diagnosing patients with these disease states but instead were informing them of what their numbers looked like and what the numbers meant relative to their overall health and providing counseling as applicable. The primary objective of this essay is to describe the steps that went into organizing student-led health fairs and the impact of these efforts on the community.