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

Abstract

Background

The American Pharmacists Association Foundation Incentive Grant program provides funding for pharmacy learners to conduct community pharmacy-based research projects. Over the 30-year period since its inception, the number of grants awarded has grown through support from the Community Pharmacy Foundation.

Objective

The objective of this project was to describe the breakdown of project topics and geographic reach of Incentive Grant–funded projects from 1994 to 2024 and summarize the number of patients or survey respondents reached.

Methods

All available reports and supporting documents for the Incentive Grant program were reviewed using the American Pharmacists Association Foundation internal database. Projects were assigned a geographical region using US Census Bureau Divisions and categorized using focus areas from grant calls-for-proposals. Project impact was evaluated by summing the number of interventions reported in final reports.

Results

A total of 784 projects were conducted and 551 had final reports available. Thirteen project focus areas were identified, with a majority of projects related to cardiovascular disease management (21.1%), pharmacy workflow/processes (14%), and immunizations (13.3%). Projects were conducted most frequently in the U.S. regions of South Atlantic (27.4%), East North Central (24.2%), and West North Central (14.9%). Of 398 projects with intervention-level data reported (2004–2024), 100,547 interventions were made (86,616 patients impacted and 13,931 survey respondents reached).

Conclusion

The findings of this study serve as a summary of community pharmacy-based research over time, indicating the American Pharmacists Association Foundation Incentive Grant program has likely had a positive influence on community pharmacy-based research as evidenced by number of funded projects, geographic scope, participant impact, and breadth of project focus.