Essay on the Role of Pharmacists in Public Health and Health Promotion

This essay critically analyzes the multifaceted role of pharmacists in public health and health promotion, with a specific focus on the implications of vaccination programs. The essay explores how pharmacists contribute to increasing public awareness of health and wellbeing, providing accessible health information, and delivering vaccination services. It discusses the benefits of vaccination for patients, healthcare practitioners, and the broader society, including disease prevention and improved health outcomes. Furthermore, it examines the risks associated with vaccination programs, such as potential side effects and challenges in service delivery. The essay also highlights the pharmacist's expanding role in providing patient education, identifying target groups for vaccination, and addressing public concerns about immunization. The essay also touches upon the impact of vaccination programs on the pharmacy profession and the wider community. Ultimately, the essay emphasizes the importance of pharmacists as key players in promoting public health through vaccination and other health initiatives.

Public Health and
Health Promotion

Table of Contents
ESSAY ON CRITICALLY ANALYSING THE ROLE OF PHARMACIST IN PUBLIC
HEALTH AND HEALTH PROMOTION......................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

ESSAY ON CRITICALLY ANALYSING THE ROLE OF PHARMACIST IN
PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH PROMOTION
Health Promotion relates to increasing awareness of people towards their own health and
wellbeing. It focuses on wide range of social and environmental interventions that are designed
to benefit and protect individual people's health and quality of life. Public Health is the concept
of wellbeing of people in ways such as physically, mentally and socially. The following essay is
focused on vaccination which will provide the readers with the information about risks and
benefits associated with patient, individual practitioner, the pharmacy profession and the broader
society in relation to the use of vaccination (Schmidt, Gostin and Emanuel, 2015).
The pharmacist plays an important role in the public health and promotion so that people
could be educated and made aware about the health precautions activities and adopt suitable
ways in order to keep themselves healthy and free from diseases. This will not only help in
keeping themselves but with the help of this, it will be possible to keep their surrounding
environment also to be safe and hygiene. As compared to the traditional times, the role of
pharmacist has changed from a narrow scope to wider scope because they had proven to be an
accessible resource for health and medical information. The centralised placement in the
community of pharmacists are invaluable. With the help of this role, it has been possible for the
patients to have proper ideas and means from which it could become possible for them to access
knowledge about their health and wellbeing. It is because of their experiences which impacts
upon their specification and increases the base of their knowledge by providing treatment to
patients suffering from different issues and diseases and on the very basis, improvement in their
ways of providing treatment could be enhanced. It provides most of positive effects to the society
as with the help of this medical practitioner, it has been possible for patients not only to get
medical services but also to have knowledge about their health and wellbeing such as nutritional
diets and many more. At the miniaturized scale level, general well-being exercises might be one
of numerous shops among a drug specialist's arrangement of obligations (Sallis, Owen and
Fisher, 2015). For instance, a network drug specialist who addresses local gatherings about
medication misuse and gives hypertension screening in their drug store is giving general well-
being administrations at the smaller scale level, while a drug specialist who is the medication
program head of a state Medicaid program is giving administrations at the large scale level.

Performing general well-being exercises on the smaller scale level still protects their way of life
as a drug specialist.
Then again, when a drug specialist chips away at the large scale level in the limit of well-
being arranging, assessment and organization, his/her way of life as a drug specialist is
intermittently compromised. Numerous drug specialists have stood up for themselves and set up
an articulated practical limit in general well-being. Nonetheless, by and large, drug specialists are
an underutilized wellspring of true and recounted well-being information that could help well-
being organizers as they try to meet network needs. It is basic to change the support in general
well-being exercises as more than extra errands, yet as a vehicle through which all exercises are
sifted. The capacity to propel general well-being activity is especially testing inside the bounds
of the customary expense for-item framework (Hills, Dengel and Lubans, 2015). In numerous
occasions, drug specialists are not made up for well-being advancement or infection
counteractive action and the executives exercises. In this manner, they are progressively disposed
to check these exercises, and boost the obligations of apportioning drugs for which they can get
paid. Drug specialists who perform obligations on the small scale level ordinarily are not made
up for this work, while money related motivations may exist for obligations performed on the
full scale level. For example, the consolidation of preventive strategies may have positive
monetary ramifications on an institutional level. Thus, the drug specialist in senior administration
may unequivocally promoter and grasp general wellbeing methodologies. The full scale level of
general well-being has been often neglected in the field of drug store when uncovering
understudies and early experts to general well-being (Eldredge and et. al., 2016).
Vaccination can be defined as the process which is done to help the immune system to
develop protection from a disease. It contains microorganisms or virus which are in the form of
weakened or in killed state. To the patients there are many benefits which it provides to them
impacting positively on the health and wellbeing of patients. It is related to the protection of
patients from different diseases impacting negatively on the health and wellbeing of patients. So
it provides protection to the patients from some diseases that can even cause them to long term
health problems and health issues. As compared to any other medical intervention, it had saved
more lives in comparison to antibiotics, or surgery and many more concepts. Another benefit is
related to the prevention of patients from disabilities such as blindness and paralysis that can be
cause by a disease. On the other hand, there are also some mild side effects which also impacts

negatively on the health and wellness of patients for a short period of time. It is related to low
grade fever, or pain and redness at injection site. But the impacts of these side effects goes within
some days only. But there are some impacts which stays with the patient for a long period of
time. There are also some important points to consider about the benefits and risks which the
health care practitioner can also do. So with the help of vaccination programs, there are many
benefits which an individual health care practitioner such as pharmacist could have by
acknowledging the vaccination program. It is related to the improvement in the quality of
services of the pharmacist in relation to the quality and quantity of the delivery of vaccination
services. In addition to this, there were several other benefits which are provided to health care
individuals such as minimising financial burdens for nearby persons, increasing community
awareness, participation, education and partnership. Further, the improvement has been made in
disease monitoring and vaccination coverage and developing new or improved vaccines and
improving the use of vaccines as well (Salazar, Crosby and DiClemente, 2015).
The 2009 across the board flare-up of the H1N1 infection has been started the
extraordinary discussion about immunizations, and numerous patients were looked with the
choice of whether to inoculate themselves and their kids (Vaccinations: The Expanding Role of
Pharmacists, 2019). Despite the fact that the choice to get antibodies is as yet a patient's
decision, as one of the most available medicinal services experts, drug specialists can be
instrumental in furnishing patients with appropriate data to settle on educated decisions with
regards to vaccinations, as far as the advantages just as the dangers. Drug specialists are likewise
in an exceptional situation to distinguish those patients who are in objective gatherings for
certain vaccinations. They additionally might have the option to facilitate the apprehensions of
numerous patients by furnishing them with the realities just as the huge dangers related with not
being inoculated.
In the risks which are associated with the vaccination programs to the pharmacist is
related to decrease in the effectiveness of providing services. It is because it is not sure that the
strategies and information provided in the programs may suit every health care practitioner when
he/she is making use of those new ways of delivering services. As there is a lot of difference in
between the ways of providing services to different patients by the health care practitioners.
The risks are also associated with the pharmacy profession as well with the
implementation of vaccination programs. As the benefits are related to improvement in the ways

of delivering services and improvements could be made in the processes as well. On the basis of
these improvements, there will also be several changes in the policies and strategies of the health
care organisations as well. It will also make it difficult for this profession because some risks are
also associated with the implementation of these processes as may be it could become difficult
for some organisations to make adoption of these processes in the working of their organisation.
So this will impact negatively on ways of delivering services of company. In this situation, the
health care organisations neither be able to implement new ways of working nor will be able to
continue with their old ways of working. Looking onto the broader context, so with the help of
vaccination programs, the people could be made aware and educated about importance of
vaccination programs and benefits which it will provide to the patients, society and the
community as well. By making the people aware about the importance of vaccination programs,
the knowledge could be provided to be more people covering large area of people. In the
disadvantages of the implementation of vaccination programs, there will be some risks as well
which will impact negatively on the health promotion (Baum, 2016). Additionally, there are also
some negative impacts of these vaccination programs on the health and wellbeing of individual.
However, the impact of these side effects does not remain for a long period of time but there are
also some exceptions that could impact negatively on the health and wellbeing of different
patients. Further, the possibility is also related to decreased use of vaccination processes in case
people are provided with the bad impacts of the vaccination. This will prove to be a disadvantage
because of the vaccination programs for the broader community as well.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baum, F., 2016. The new public health (No. Ed. 4). Oxford University Press.
Eldredge, L. K. B. and et. al., 2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention
mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Hills, A. P., Dengel, D. R. and Lubans, D. R., 2015. Supporting public health priorities:
recommendations for physical education and physical activity promotion in schools.
Progress in cardiovascular diseases. 57(4). pp.368-374.
Salazar, L. F., Crosby, R. A. and DiClemente, R. J. eds., 2015. Research methods in health
promotion. John Wiley & Sons.
Sallis, J. F., Owen, N. and Fisher, E., 2015. Ecological models of health behavior. Health
behavior: Theory, research, and practice. 5. pp.43-64.
Schmidt, H., Gostin, L. O. and Emanuel, E. J., 2015. Public health, universal health coverage,
and Sustainable Development Goals: can they coexist? The Lancet. 386(9996). pp.928-
930.
Online
Vaccinations: The Expanding Role of Pharmacists. 2019. [ Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2010/january2010/
featurefocusvaccinations-0110>