Anita N. Jacobson, PharmD

Anita N. Jacobson, PharmD, is a Clinical Professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and has worked in direct patient care as a pharmacist in a variety of community and health system settings for over 25 years. She is the Director of the Community First Responder Program, which focuses on harm reduction, overdose education, and naloxone outreach, and serves as the hub of the Northeast Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Regional Center. As program director she has secured over 5.5 million dollars in state and federal grant funding and leads an interprofessional team of social workers, pharmacists, student pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians to order accredited training programs and distribute over 55,000 naloxone kits statewide per year in RI with an additional 3,000 kits sent via mail to rural New England residents.

Jacobson is the Coordinator of the Pharmacists Patient Care Laboratories for the Doctor of Pharmacy Program and is an Instructor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at URI. Her areas of teaching in the PharmD curriculum include patient-pharmacist communication, physical assessment, substance use disorders, mental health, cultural sensitivity, health disparities, stigma, health literacy, motivational interviewing, and health care policy.

Jacobson works as a per diem pharmacist at a long-term acute care facility, Eleanor Slater Hospital, for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. She currently serves on the Opioid Fatality Review Committee for the State of Rhode Island and is a past-president of the Rhode Island Pharmacists Association, past-member of the RI Board of Pharmacy, and  former chair of the Health Disparities and Cultural Competence SIG of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.