American Pharmacists Association Foundation Incentive Grants: A 30-year descriptive review

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy research
• Community health initiatives
• Public health interventions

Background:

• The American Pharmacists Association Foundation Incentive Grant program supports pharmacy learners in community pharmacy research.
• Funding has increased over 30 years, supported by the Community Pharmacy Foundation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the project topics and geographic distribution of Incentive Grant-funded research from 1994 to 2024.
• To quantify the reach of these community pharmacy research projects in terms of patients and survey respondents.

Main Methods:

• A review of all available Incentive Grant program reports from the American Pharmacists Association Foundation internal database.
• Projects were categorized by focus areas and geographic regions (US Census Bureau Divisions).
• Project impact was measured by the number of interventions reported.

Main Results:

• 784 projects were identified, with 551 having available reports. Key focus areas included cardiovascular disease management (21.1%), pharmacy workflow/processes (14%), and immunizations (13.3%).
• Projects were most concentrated in the South Atlantic (27.4%), East North Central (24.2%), and West North Central (14.9%) US regions.
• From 2004-2024, 398 projects reported 100,547 interventions, impacting 86,616 patients and reaching 13,931 survey respondents.

Conclusions:

• The Incentive Grant program has demonstrably influenced community pharmacy-based research over three decades.
• The program's success is evident in the number of funded projects, geographic spread, participant engagement, and diverse research topics.