Conceptualizing social ecological model in pharmacy to address racism as a social determinant of health

Racism has been declared a public health crisis. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic has highlighted inequities in the U.S. health care system and presents unique opportunities for the pharmacy academy to evaluate the training of student pharmacists to address social determinants of health amongst racial and ethnic minorities. The social ecological model, consisting of five levels of intervention (individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy), has been effectively utilized in public health practice to influence behavior change that positively impacts health outcomes. This Commentary adapted the social ecological model and proposed a framework with five intervention levels for integrating racism as a social determinant of health into pharmacy curriculum. The proposed corresponding levels of intervention for pharmacy education are the curricular, interprofessional, institutional, community, and accreditation levels. Other health professions such as dentistry, medicine, and nursing can easily adopt this framework for teaching racism and social determinants of health within their respective curricula.