Andrea K. Contreras, MD is completing her first year in Complex Family Planning and master’s in public health at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She completed medical school at Baylor College of Medicine and her OB/GYN residency at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Her interests are in legislative advocacy and policy implementation research.

Her fellowship research project will assess the implementation of recent Connecticut legislation to increase access to contraception by allowing pharmacists to prescribe contraception. Currently, 29 states in the US have passed similar legislation but implementation and uptake of this practice varies. To address barriers and facilitators identified in prior research studies, an implementation toolkit was developed by the Birth Control Pharmacist. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of the implementation toolkit using a mixed methods approach. Participating pharmacies will be randomized into pharmacist training alone (control group) or pharmacist training plus implementation toolkit (intervention group). All Payer Claims Database (APCD) will be analyzed to assess uptake of contraception prescriptions written at the pharmacy and pharmacist level. At the end of the implementation period, we will conduct focus groups to identify perceived barriers and facilitators in both study groups.