Moving upstream: The need for pharmacists to address food security

Food insecurity, a key upstream Social Determinant of Health (SDoH), is increasingly recognized as a barrier to achieving optimal health outcomes. In 2024, 13.5% of households in the United States were food insecure. Food insecurity affects the entire family, including their health care decisions. For example, individuals with food insecurity often make decisions between taking medications and buying food or struggle with appointment adherence at the end of the month. Health professionals' awareness of and ability to recognize SDoH varies based on their training curriculum, the decade in which they were trained, and their interest in keeping abreast with current practices. For pharmacists to truly function in a patient-centered approach as outlined in the Pharmacists' Patient Care Process, they must deliver care in the context in which patients live their lives. Pharmacists can play a key role in helping to address SDoH by transforming current practice beyond the traditional clinical approaches and adopt methods to identify and address the social factors that impact patients' health outcomes and medication use.