Pharmacists’ knowledge and accessibility in nearly every urban and rural community should be leveraged as a core component of comprehensive HIV prevention and care strategies to expand access to services and improve population health. As trusted health care professionals who develop a strong rapport with patients, pharmacists can address disparities in PrEP-prescribing patterns and act as essential liaisons between patients and other members of the multidisciplinary care team.

This year’s expansion of biomedical PrEP options increases the ability to match prevention methods to individual life circumstances. A broader menu of PrEP products enables personalized prevention plans that account for housing stability, work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, and other social determinants of health. Pharmacists can counsel patients on comparative benefits, side effects, adherence needs, and logistics to support informed choice and sustained use.

NMAC’s partnership with the RxEACH Initiative focuses on expanding access to HIV prevention and linkage to care services through community pharmacies. This kind of partnership demonstrates how national organizations and community pharmacy networks can scale pharmacy-based prevention, integrate referral and case management pathways, and provide training and quality assurance for pharmacists delivering HIV services.
 

Recommendations for Policy and Practice

  • Authorize pharmacists to provide PrEP in jurisdictions lacking access to primary care or specialist providers.
  • Scale pharmacy-based rapid testing with clear protocols for same-day linkage to prevention and treatment.
  • Fund training and technical assistance for pharmacists on PrEP options, cultural humility, and care coordination.
  • Incentivize pharmacy services in medically underserved and rural areas through reimbursement models that cover counseling, testing, and initiation visits.
  • Integrate pharmacies into public health data and referral systems to track outcomes, identify gaps, and ensure continuity of care.
  • Center equity in outreach to ensure pharmacy-based services intentionally reach communities most affected by HIV.


The National HIV/AIDS Strategy notes that community pharmacies and pharmacists represent an underused but powerful resource for expanding HIV prevention and care. Leveraging their accessibility, trust, and clinical skills to prescribe PrEP, provide rapid testing, and coordinate care will reduce disparities, strengthen retention and adherence, and improve population health outcomes. NMAC’s collaboration with the RxEACH Initiative provides a practical blueprint for scaling these services through sustained partnerships and policy change.  I encourage you to explore the RxEACH playbook and toolkit as valuable resources (below). 

Look for more information on ways to expand prep access in 2026 as NMAC hosts the 2026 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit with a syndemic focus and an expanded audience. Stay tuned! 

RxEACH: Expanding equitable access to HIV prevention and linkage to care service through community pharmacies

RxEACH is a national coalition effort working to expand and sustain equitable access to HIV prevention and linkage to care services in community pharmacies. By empowering community pharmacists to provide HIV screening, PrEP, and PEP, long-standing access gaps can be bridged by bringing prevention services into trusted, convenient settings that exist in nearly every community. The accessibility, extended hours, and familiar environments of community pharmacies make them uniquely positioned to provide HIV prevention services and accelerate progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in the United States.

Expanding equitable access to HIV prevention also depends on strengthening the systems that sustain it. Pharmacists must have both the authority and reimbursement to provide these services, ensuring they can be offered consistently and sustainably across communities. RxEACH partners are advancing sustainable policy solutions that align authority and reimbursement to meet people where they live and ensure life-saving HIV prevention services are accessible in communities long underserved by traditional health care systems.

Through founding support from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, RxEACH unites pharmacy, public health, and community leaders to turn this vision into action. The initiative focuses on four areas: building coalitions that drive unified policy change and capacity for increased service delivery, providing clear guidance on federal and state policy pathways, simplifying rulemaking, and translating recommendations into practical tools for implementation.

To date, RxEACH has engaged more than 60 partner organizations, convened State Action Institutes with five states, influenced federal policy to strengthen reimbursement for pharmacists, and launched practical resources (see below).

Sara Zeigler, Aliyah Ali, on Behalf of the RxEACH Initiative

RxEACH Resources

State Action Playbook

This playbook is tailored for organizations and individuals who share a vision that there is value in expanding access to HIV prevention services and linkage to care through community pharmacies. It provides a framework for advancing state scope of practice and payment policies, bringing together various stakeholders including pharmacists, HIV advocates, physicians, payors, public health officials, and policy decision-makers.

Prepped to Serve: The Community Pharmacy’s HIV Prevention Toolkit (the Toolkit)

The newly released Toolkit is hands-on resource is a practical, actionable resource for advancing pharmacy-based HIV prevention and linkage to care services. The Toolkit includes:

  • Practical strategies for launching and sustaining HIV prevention and linkage to care services in community pharmacies
  • Checklists that support service implementation and on-going improvement
  • Tools to build partnerships, establish workflows, and create patient-centered, stigma free spaces

Explore the Toolkit at rxeach.org/implementation-resources and watch the recorded townhall introducing its development, purpose, and use in the field.

To learn more about the RxEACH Initiative or partnership opportunities, visit https://rxeach.org/ or contact info@rxeach.org.