Touro University pharmacy students increasing STI awareness at the Berkeley youth clinic

Issues: Berkeley California has a large population of homeless youth that have limited access to health-care.

Description: Youth clinic was established in 1997 by the Berkeley Chaplaincy to assist the homeless youth that reside in Berkeley, California. It was transferred to UC Berkeley to be run by multidisciplinary student bodies to provide preventive health care services. On September 2011, Touro Pharmacy Alliance approved a budget of $1200 a year to provide the Youth clinic with over the counter medications such as anti-fungals, anti-lice creams, cold and flu medications, and much more. Every week a group of students from Touro University-College of Pharmacy, along with a licensed pharmacist, head to the clinic to provide these medications and the appropriate consultations to the clinic attendees. The objectives of the clinic, in addition to providing the medications, is to educate the youth on safe sex and various community acquired sexually transmitted infections such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, Herpes, Chlamydia, and Gonorrhea.

Lessons Learned: Clinic attendees ask several questions when they see the various brochures regarding STIs. The fact that these young boys and girls ask many questions, most being rudimentary, led us to realize that current city and state STI public health interventions and awareness campaigns are largely ineffective in reaching this demographic.

Recommendations: Touro University pharmacy and public health students are working together to develop materials that can educate and empower this hard to reach cohort.