MacKinnon Recognized by ASHP-ASBP for Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

Since his arrival at the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 2013, Dean Neil MacKinnon, PhD, has made a concerted effort to ensure that the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy is a warm and inviting environment, where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and succeed.

MacKinnon, known as "Dean Mac” to UC pharmacy students, was recently recognized for these efforts, as the recipient of the 2017 joint leadership award presented by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and the Association of Black Health-System Pharmacists (ASBP). The award applauds individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

Per the ASHP-ASBP announcement: "Dr. MacKinnon has worked to raise the level of cultural competence among health care professionals, increase numbers of minority students and faculty, and improve access to quality health care for patients in underserved areas.”

MacKinnon’s list of strides in the area of diversity and inclusion at UC include:

• Hiring the first Latina faculty member in the 167-year-old history of the college.
• Creating a new position at the college: Director of Equity and Inclusion.
• Incorporating metrics related to enhancing diversity among faculty, staff and students into the college’s new strategic plan, "We Are Pharmacy: Rx for the Future.”
• Strengthening the partnership with the Cincinnati Health Department to reach the urban underserved, and creating an academic fellow position, whose practice site is the Cincinnati Health Department.

These advances, however, are rooted in a lifetime of MacKinnon’s prior employment, as the director of the Center for Rural Health in Arizona, which houses the Arizona State Office of Rural Health, where he worked to reduce health disparities among the Latino and tribal nations in that state, and his previous work in Canada.

MacKinnon says, "As a pharmacist, I was greatly influenced by my time as a faculty member in a college of public health at the University of Arizona and I believe that pharmacists have a critical role to play in public health to reducing health disparities. At UC we are an urban-serving university and, as an academic health center, we are striving to help reduce health disparities right here in Cincinnati in our local neighborhoods.”