Public Health Campaign for Medicine Use
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Should "Medicine Use" be part of the lifestyle Public Health Campaign?
IRAS ID
178703
Contact name
Mahsa Ranjbar
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Hertfordshire
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Public health is the science and art of promoting, protecting health and well-being, preventing ill-health and prolonging life through the organised efforts of society. Whether policy makers and practitioners can achieve this depends upon their ability to accurately identify and define public health problems. In the past decade, there has been a growing recognition of the scope and numbers of patients failing to take their medicines as prescribed. This results in various degrees of treatment failures causing substantial losses both in terms of life quality and financial resources (York Health Economics Consortium and the School of Pharmacy, U. o. L. , 2010).
One possible way to raise public awareness about the concept of medicine use is by including it in a lifestyle public health campaign. The aim of this research is to investigate possible input by the general public and by health care providers into such an approach. Based on the findings, an educational “Medicine Awareness Campaign” (MAC) will be developed and the view of health care providers on delivering this MAC will be sought. The campaign will then be implemented and its impact on public awareness will be evaluated. The MAC will be developed in line with the national initiative lifestyle campaign “Make Every Contact Count” (MECC) (Mooney, H., 2012 ). This campaign supported health care providers at all levels to interact with members of the public and has given simple lifestyle messages on issues such as smoking cessation, and signposting the public to specialists for further public health interventions.
Promotional tools such as posters and leaflets in selected public areas will be used to help deliver the MAC campaign. The aim will be to increase public awareness of the importance of appropriate and sufficient attention to the use of prescribed medicines and/or medicine use advised by pharmacists. It may also signpost people to appropriate services available in the NHS through pharmacies and GP surgeries to assist or (re)negotiate medicine use. Potentially, the campaign could support better use of medicines, reduction of hospitalisation and prevention of medicine waste.
References:
Mooney, H., (2012), Doctors are told to “make every contact count” to reduce costs of poor lifestyles: BMJ, v. 344.
York Health Economics Consortium and the School of Pharmacy University of London, (2010), Evaluation of the Scale, Causes and Costs of Waste Medicines.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
15/WA/0170
Date of REC Opinion
29 May 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion