Small Grant Support for Colleges/Schools of Pharmacy
Future Pharmacists Grant Program
2020-2021

Overview

NABP-AACP District IV recognizes the role of pharmacy students in shaping the future of the profession. The purpose of this program is to support projects that promote and advance the public health. These projects must be carried out by students from District IV (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois) colleges or schools of pharmacy in conjunction with one or more community partners. The grant is intended to provide seed money to develop sustainable programs (programs that can continue beyond the grant period). The projects must have measurable outcomes, and serve as templates that can be implemented by interested groups elsewhere in the country.
The District IV Board has designated mental health as the topic for this grant cycle. Proposals submitted for this cycle should be relevant to pharmacy practice, academic pharmacy and/or state boards of pharmacy.

Mental Health

Mental health disorders occur frequently in the United States. Mental health is often still a taboo subject for many health professionals and for society as a whole and is underdiagnosed and undertreated in the United States. About one in five adults suffer from a diagnosable mental illness (disorder) in a given year.¹ Some of the most common mental illnesses may increase risk of suicide, among them depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and a combination of mental illness and substance abuse.²

In 2017, suicide claimed 47,173 lives in the United States alone, making it the 10^th leading cause of death in the most recently published national statistics.³ Suicide rates continue to climb as well, with a 22 percent increase seen from 2008-2017.⁴ Most worryingly, those rates have increased even more among ages 0-17 and 18-34, up 82 percent and 36 percent, respectively.⁴

Suicide rates only provide one piece of a much larger problem. The number of adolescents aged 12-17 that have reported at least one major depressive episode in the last six years has risen from 8.66% to 13.01%.⁵ 45 million adults in the United States experience a mental health illness, with nearly 6.7 million adults in District IV alone.⁵

While the number of Americans with mental health illness continues to rise, treatment continues to lag behind in the United States. According to Mental Health America, 70% of youth with major depression are untreated, while over 10 million adults in the U.S have an unmet treatment need.

As a future pharmacist, you are uniquely positioned to improve care. Pharmacists are the most accessible and frequently visited members of the healthcare team, and can be a crucial advocate for mental health awareness, advocacy, and treatment.⁶ Pharmacy students, in coordination with faculty members, community leaders, and advocacy groups have great opportunities to enact effective change.

The Projects

District IV will support sustainable projects that can implement problem-solving ideas to address mental health in the community. The projects submitted must have community partner involvement. Project partners can include any community groups that deal with mental health in the community. These can include social and health organizations, government agencies, legislative offices, professional associations, and state boards of pharmacy.

A major goal of this grant is to establish and strengthen ties between student groups and their community partners. The projects should have clear objectives that will be attained during the project.

All participating partners must have a relevant role in the project. The student organization must take the leadership role.

This award is not intended to support current activities, but to assist in establishing new ones.

Funding

The maximum funding request is $3,000. The District IV Board reserves the right to make more than one award, not to exceed this funding amount.

Eligibility

All student groups and professional chapter organizations in colleges/schools of pharmacy located in District IV are encouraged to apply.

One proposal will be accepted per college/school. The project must have a full-time faculty member at the college/school as an advisor.

2020-2021 Grant Project Timeline

January or February, 2020	Grant announcement made/Application period begins
August 21, 2020	Online applications due to the District IV website by 5 PM Central Time/ 6 PM Eastern
September to October, 2020	Application review period
October 8, 2020	Awardees formally announced at District IV Annual Meeting hosted by The Ohio State University and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy
October, 2020	Project/Activity period begins
November, 2020	Funds forwarded to awardee
February 26, 2021	Mid-project report due
February 26, 2021	Project/Activity period ends
July 2, 2021	Final Project Report due from awardee(s) and financial report due to grant administrator
November 2021	One student representative presents the project report at the District IV Annual Meeting

Evaluation Criteria

The primary evaluation criteria are provided in the evaluation rubric (see below). Under the direction of the Executive Director of the District IV Board, reviewers will be appointed to evaluate the proposals.

Click on the following image to see scoring breakdown:

Budget

Must be clear, detailed and appropriate.

Please note:

• No funding is available for charges incurred outside the project period.
• Funding for supplies/equipment is limited to items essential to the project. Applicants are encouraged to outline a plan for what happens to equipment after completion of the project. Equipment maintenance or repair is not eligible for funding.
• Consult your school/college of pharmacy or university Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval of using human subjects in research.

Note: If you receive the award, funds not used at the end of the project period must be returned to District IV.

Budget Justification:
All funding requests must be justified in narrative form (maximum of 1 page). Applicants are advised to consider that the review committee relies heavily on the narrative budget explanation and justification when making decisions about funding.

Grant Administrator

Should you have any questions regarding the grant project, please contact:

Walter Siganga, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Email – wsigang@siue.edu  Specify “District IV Grant” in the Subject line.
Phone – 618-650-5135

and

Ryan S. Ades, PharmD, RPh, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
Email – rades@manchester.edu Specify “District IV Grant” in the Subject line.
Phone – 260-470-4075

 

Ready to Apply? Click Here to Apply Now!

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1Mental Illness and Suicide. https://save.org/about-suicide/mental-illness-and-suicide/. Accessed December 9, 2019

2 2. Bradvik, Louis. Suicide Risk and Mental Disorders. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Sep; 15(9):2028.

33. Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Arias E. Deaths: Final data for 2017. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 68 no 9. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf. Accessed December 2, 2019

4 4. Trust for America’s Health. Pain in the Nation Update: while deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide slowed slightly in 2017, rates are still at historic highs. (2019). https://wellbeingtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FINAL-WBT-TFAH-2019-PainNationUpdateBrief-1-1.pdf. Accessed December 2, 2019

5 5. Mental Health America, Inc. The State of Mental Health In America 2020. (2019). https://www.mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america. Accessed December 2, 2019

6 6. Manolakis, P. G., & Skelton, J. B. (2010, December 15). Pharmacists’ contributions to primary care in the United States collaborating to address unmet patient care needs: the emerging role for pharmacists to address the shortage of primary care providers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058447/. Accessed December 2, 2019