Community Pharmacies Need to Better Prioritize Whole-Person Health Care | NCPA 2025

When pharmacists solely focus on the services they have authority to provide—such as immunizations and point-of-care testing—they can potentially lose sight of what truly makes a patients’ health care journey more manageable, such as focus on access, affordability, and a large variety of behavioral health aspects.

“We need to take a look at the individual as a whole person,” Andrew M. Peterson, PharmD, PhD, FCPP, professor at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, told Drug Topics. “When we as pharmacists focus just on the medications and we aren't paying attention to the other things that are affecting [patients’] ability to access medications, we're not taking into account that whole person.”

At the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) 2025 Annual Convention & Expo, Peterson hosted a session titled “Bridging Care Gaps: Behavioral Health Advocacy at the Pharmacy Counter.” Prior to his presentation, we caught up with Peterson to discuss social determinants of health (SDOH), behavioral health, and the variety of gaps pharmacists can fill in themselves.

In the third and final part of our interview with him, Peterson focused on how community pharmacies can be prioritizing behavioral health care to address all aspects of a patient’s health. With pharmacy practices—especially community pharmacies—continuously rising as the most convenient and accessible health care destinations, Peterson shares the ways in which they can get even more involved in addressing many health concerns among the community.

Get insights on why services related to behavioral and SDOH are on the rise and are necessary for communities to prioritize in today’s health care landscape.

Read more of our coverage from NCPA 2025.

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