Pharmacist Workforce Challenges and Solutions: Perspectives from Research and Practice

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the launch of this Special Issue, entitled “Pharmacist Workforce Challenges and Solutions: Perspectives from Research and Practice.” This Special Issue will bring together diverse perspectives from practitioners in hospitals, the community, industry, academia, regulatory affairs, and other sectors, as well as socio-behavioral and policy researchers, to address the evolving workforce landscape in pharmacy. While the existing literature provides valuable insights into these issues, there remains a need for research that integrates academic evidence with practical solutions drawn from real-world experiences.

Pharmacists play a critical role in healthcare delivery, yet workforce challenges—shortages, geographic disparities, evolving practice models, expansion of scope, burnout, and the need for new skills (for example, those related to expanded clinical roles or service provision in underserved areas), among others—pose ongoing barriers to optimizing patient care. This Special Issue intends to bridge that gap by presenting studies that both expand upon the current body of work, offering new data, comparative analyses, and innovative strategies that can inform policy, education, and practice.

We welcome submissions from all areas relevant to the pharmacist workforce, including but not limited to workforce supply and demand, career pathways, workforce diversity, education and training models, job satisfaction, retention strategies, and interprofessional collaboration. Both research articles and practice-oriented contributions are encouraged, as well as reviews, commentaries, and case studies.

We hope this Special Issue will serve as a valuable resource for deepening the understanding of pharmacist workforce challenges while providing evidence-based solutions to strengthen the pharmacy workforce worldwide.

Dr. Ioana Popovici
Prof. Dr. Manuel J. Carvajal
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmacy is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• burnout
• earnings
• geographic disparities
• health policy
• interprofessional collaboration
• job satisfaction
• pharmacist workforce
• pharmacy education
• salary
• work input
• workforce mobility
• workforce retention
• workforce trends
• age
• gender
• location (resource-rich and resource-poor locations)
• professional leadership associations or groups
• global shortfall