Examining the Research Gap in Community Pharmacy Roles in Public Health in Nigeria

Community pharmacies represent an underutilised public health infrastructure in Nigeria, and their potential contribution to health promotion, disease screening, and health education has not been systematically examined within Nigerian community medicine scholarship. This study examined the research gap in the roles of community pharmacies as public health delivery platforms in Nigeria. A systematic scoping review was conducted, searching nine databases for publications on community pharmacy public health roles in Nigeria from 2015 to 2024. Inclusion criteria required focus on health promotion, screening, disease prevention, or health education activities delivered through Nigerian community pharmacies. A grey literature search supplemented peer-reviewed sources. Forty-six eligible publications were identified and mapped against a taxonomy of community pharmacy public health functions. Results showed that dispensing for infectious diseases (malaria, TB, HIV) dominated the literature at 52.2 percent of publications, while health promotion and screening roles accounted for only 21.7 percent. Hypertension and diabetes screening by pharmacists was addressed in 8.7 percent of publications despite its high feasibility. Mental health first aid, smoking cessation, and immunisation outreach by pharmacists received no coverage in the identified literature. Only three publications evaluated community pharmacy-delivered health promotion interventions with outcome data. The study identifies eight underresearched community pharmacy public health roles and proposes a Nigeria Community Pharmacy Public Health Framework specifying four priority service categories. Recommendations include regulatory and financial enabling mechanisms for PHC-community pharmacy collaboration.

Keywords: community pharmacy, public health roles, research gap, Nigeria, scoping review