The Urgent Role of a Pharmacist Manager in Health Equity
- aPHP
- Jul 3
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 18
Summary: Uncover how the pharmacist manager in health equity serves as a bold catalyst for systemic change, designing equitable workflows, leading inclusive teams, and reshaping pharmacy practice to deliver justice-driven care that lasts.
Why Health Equity Requires Strong Pharmacy Leadership
The disproportionate health outcomes experienced by marginalized communities remain one of the most persistent failures of modern healthcare. From limited access to culturally responsive care to gaps in medication adherence and chronic disease management, systemic disparities continue to shape who receives care and how.
While national initiatives and regulatory bodies now push for equity standards, progress hinges on how these ideals are translated into local pharmacy workflows and team structures. This responsibility rests heavily on the pharmacist manager in health equity, the leader responsible for translating equity goals into real-world impact.
Pharmacist managers shape hiring decisions, team culture, and care delivery. Their influence determines whether equity is embedded in a pharmacy’s DNA or treated as a checkbox. Through intentional leadership, they:
Apply population health principles to close equity gaps
Build teams that reflect community diversity and patient lived experiences
Recruit and mentor minority pharmacists to lead equity-aligned solutions
Guide culturally responsive training and education
Prioritize lifelong learning in pharmacological and population health disciplines
Stay attuned to local community needs, driving person-centered, place-based strategy
This article focuses on the role of pharmacist managers in health equity, highlighting their position as catalysts for long-term systems change. However, before exploring leadership in action, it’s essential to revisit the foundation: What is health equity, and how does it differ from equality?
What Is Health Equity in Pharmacy Practice?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines health equity as the ability to attain the highest level of health without being hindered by avoidable or unjust conditions.² The World Health Organization (WHO) adds that these inequities often stem from social, political, and economic systems that marginalize entire populations.⁸
In pharmacy practice, this means actively dismantling the barriers that prevent patients from receiving the medications, counseling, and care coordination they need to live well.
Pharmacists witness these inequities every day: patients choosing between food and prescriptions, cultural misunderstandings that affect adherence, or individuals with disabilities navigating inaccessible medication education. While all pharmacists have a role to play, the pharmacist manager in health equity is the one designing workflows, teams, and policies that respond to these inequities at scale.
Whether addressing geographic isolation, language barriers, or a lack of trust in medical systems, equity-focused pharmacist managers apply population health strategies that make care delivery both individualized and inclusive. Their decisions shape who is hired, how teams are trained, and how the system functions for those who have been historically overlooked.
Historically excluded groups in healthcare include which of the following?
A) Black or African American communities
B) People with disabilities
C) Indigenous populations
D) LGBTQ+ communities
Health Equity vs. Health Equality:
Why the Difference Matters
In pharmacy practice, the distinction between health equity and health equality influences how care is delivered and to whom it is effective.
Health equality assumes that giving everyone the same services yields the same outcomes.⁵ In reality, equal care often ignores the social, cultural, or structural challenges that specific populations face. A standardized patient handout or 30-second counseling session may suffice for one person, but leave another without meaningful support.
Health equity, on the other hand, requires tailoring care to meet individual needs and removing systemic barriers that block access to care.⁵ It means offering services based on context, rather than convenience, and addressing root causes rather than symptoms.
This is where the pharmacist manager in health equity plays a pivotal role. These leaders assess the systems behind care delivery and ask the more complex questions:
Who is left behind by our current workflows?
Are our linguistic services equitable?
Do our hiring and mentorship practices reflect the diversity of the populations we serve?
By practicing equitable thinking, beyond delivering equal services, pharmacist managers build systems that work for everyone. They create room for culturally responsive care, inclusive pharmacy staff training, and interventions that meet patients where they are.
In short, equality distributes resources. Equity builds access.
The Pharmacist Equity Champion: Dr. Cooper’s Legacy
The pharmacist manager in health equity does more than supervise; they shape environments that produce sustainable change. That legacy begins with leaders such as Dr. Chauncey I. Cooper, whose life and work serve as the foundation for equity-driven leadership in pharmacy.
As the former Dean of Howard University’s College of Pharmacy and a co-founding leader of the National Pharmaceutical Association (NPhA), Dr. Cooper understood that access to medication alone was insufficient. He championed systemic reform, fought for representation in national policy, and mentored numerous Black and minority pharmacists to lead within and beyond the pharmacy space.⁶
His leadership helped launch generations of pharmacists who reflect the real world: individuals from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, experiences, and community ties. This legacy directly supports the core objectives of pharmacist managers today, including equitable hiring practices, ethnically inclusive mentoring, and structural changes.
The modern pharmacist manager in health equity carries forward this blueprint by:
Prioritizing representation in hiring as a mandate for effective pharmaceutical care
Mentoring future equity leaders, such as Black minority pharmacists, to foster self-sustaining community care
Building teams equipped to meet complex needs, with lived experiences valued alongside clinical credentials
Dr. Cooper’s impact demonstrates that effective leadership in equity requires deliberate practice. His model encourages pharmacist managers to lead with intention, mentor with purpose, and design systems that close care gaps while advancing community health.
The Role of the Pharmacist Manager in Health Equity
To carry forward the equity-centered legacy of pharmacists like Dr. Cooper, today’s pharmacist manager must lead with strategy, structure, and accountability.
Their position allows them to design workflows, structure teams, and integrate health equity into the core operations of pharmacy practice, ensuring equity becomes routine rather than reactive.
Their responsibility involves aligning every component of pharmacy operations to advance population health and equity outcomes.
To lead this work effectively, the pharmacist manager in health equity must:
Embed population health strategies to address upstream risk factors
Apply social determinants of health (SDOH) data to pharmacy care models
Develop measurable staff learning objectives focused on cultural responsiveness
Set performance expectations that reflect pharmacy star rating measures tied to equity
Support CMS-aligned reimbursement practices that reward equitable outcomes
Forge partnerships with local clinics, nonprofits, and health systems to broaden access
Hire diverse teams who represent different perspectives and life experiences
Build a team culture grounded in the pharmacist's code of ethics and real-world responsiveness
Pharmacist managers who think systemically and act locally become equity leaders who model how inclusive pharmacy practice shapes healthier communities.
System-Level Advocacy: The Pharmacist’s Role in Advancing Health Equity
Pharmacist managers in health equity do more than oversee operations; they advocate for structural change. Advocacy transforms intention into action by influencing the systems, laws, and norms that shape access to and quality of care. When pharmacist managers speak out, mentor, and mobilize, they drive reforms that reflect real community needs.
Advocacy efforts include:
Presenting to boards of pharmacy and legislative groups to address care access challenges
Proposing reforms that expand pharmacist roles in chronic disease prevention and public health
Securing pharmacist grants that fund initiatives supporting health equity in underserved populations
Joining pharmacy organizations that champion justice-centered healthcare policy
Pharmacy professionals who study systems, listen to marginalized voices, and understand structural barriers are better equipped to drive solutions. Advocacy is a skill built through practice, reflection, and training—pharmacist managers who engage in advocacy lead with clarity and purpose.
This is why ongoing development matters. The Academy of Population Health Pharmacy™ (aPHP) offers training and tools that prepare pharmacists to lead effectively in health equity spaces. Through continuous professional development (CPD)-aligned exercises, reflective prompts, and skill-building resources, aPHP supports pharmacist managers in turning values into results.
aPHP - Academy of Population Health Pharmacy's™ Mission: Training Pharmacy Equity Champions
The Academy of Population Health Pharmacy™ (aPHP) exists to prepare pharmacist managers in health equity with the skills, insight, and training necessary to lead sustainable change. Founded by a pharmacist, aPHP centers population health strategies, inclusive leadership, and practical tools that drive community-level outcomes.
aPHP’s mission is rooted in the belief that pharmacist managers are pivotal in creating lasting equity. Through structured reflection, mentorship strategies, and cultural competence development, aPHP helps leaders build pharmacy teams that reflect the diverse realities of the people they serve.
One example from the CPD-aligned training series asks:
Reflect on a time when you identified a structural barrier to care in your pharmacy setting. What action did you take (or wish you had taken), and how might this inform your approach to advocacy and hiring in the future?
Exercises like this support deeper self-awareness and prepare pharmacist managers to:
Commit to URAC or NCQA health equity accreditation
Recruit culturally responsive teams with diverse lived experiences
Establish mentorship pipelines for underrepresented pharmacy professionals
Lead strategic initiatives informed by SDOH data and community priorities
Reflect on cultural and structural humility in alignment with the ACPE pharmacy training standards
Build sustainable systems that embed equity across staffing, service design, and care delivery
Pharmacy leadership requires more than clinical knowledge. It requires real-world engagement, ongoing learning, and systems thinking. aPHP’s programs are designed to cultivate this kind of leadership, bold, informed, and committed to equity as a daily practice.
By participating in aPHP’s offerings, pharmacist managers sharpen their impact, embrace lifelong learning, and contribute to a shared vision: a healthcare system where every population thrives.
The Future of Pharmacy Depends on Health Equity Leadership
The pharmacist manager in health equity represents more than just a leadership title. This role entails guiding teams, shaping policy, and elevating the standards of care across diverse populations.
Pharmacists already play a vital role in supporting medically vulnerable populations. Yet it is the pharmacist manager who transforms individual impact into institutional change. These leaders build systems that prioritize the real needs of their communities, organize team members around equity-driven goals, and push forward solutions informed by population-level insight.
Health equity requires intentionality. Health justice demands persistence. And both require leadership that reflects the world as it exists, rather than as it is imagined, idealized, or distorted by bias.
Inclusive leadership involves recruiting team members from diverse backgrounds, including those with firsthand experience of care disparities. This lived experience, when supported with clinical training and population health knowledge, becomes one of the most potent tools in pharmacy today.
The pharmacist manager who embraces lifelong learning in health equity, pharmacology, and population health becomes a force multiplier. By investing in development, mentoring minority professionals, and cultivating a practice of equitable hiring, these managers support both care improvement and community empowerment.
Pharmacy practice has reached a pivotal point. To advance, it must do more than improve access or expand roles. It must embed equity into every level of care. That means redefining what it means to lead, to train, and to serve.
Health equity begins with action. Health justice requires systems that sustain that action. And the pharmacist manager in health equity stands at the center of this transformation.
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References
Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). "Accreditation Standards and Key Elements for the Professional Program in Pharmacy Leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy Degree." www.acpe-accredit.org/pdf/ACPEStandards2025.pdf. Accessed 18 July 2025.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "What Is Health Equity?" Health Equity, 11 June 2024, www.cdc.gov/health-equity/what-is/index.html. Accessed 16 July 2025.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. "CMS Manual System Pub 100-04 Medicare Claims Processing." 2024, www.cms.gov/files/document/r12865cp.pdf. Accessed 17 July 2025.
Rouss, Michael J. "Continuing Professional Development in Pharmacy." J Am Pharm Assoc. 2004; 44:517-520. Accessed 16 July 2025.
St. Catherine University. "Health Equity vs. Health Equality: What Distinguishes Each?" Www.stkate.edu, 25 Apr. 2022, www.stkate.edu/academics/healthcare-degrees/health-equity-vs-health-equality.
University of Minnesota. "Foundational Trailblazer: Dr. Chauncey Ira Cooper." Pharmacy, 2017, www.pharmacy.umn.edu/about/our-commitment-equity-diversity-inclusion/foundational-trailblazer-dr-chauncey-ira-cooper. Accessed 16 July 2025.
URAC. "Health Equity Accreditation Program." URAC, 31 Oct. 2024, www.urac.org/accreditation-cert/health-equity-accreditation/. Accessed 16 July 2025.
World Health Organization. "Health Equity." World Health Organization, 2025, www.who.int/health-topics/health-equity#tab=tab_1. Accessed 16 July 2025.
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