KINGSTON, R.I. – May 13, 2025 – In an alcove just around the corner from the vending machines filled with snacks and beverages in the 24-hour study room on the first floor of URI’s Robert L. Carothers Library & Learning Commons sits a vending machine with a much different inventory.

URI’s wellness vending machine, which is the result of a partnership between the College of Pharmacy and Health Services, contains a wide range of low-cost products to meet the health needs of students. The machine is positioned behind a partial wall for privacy, with a sign directing students to its location.

“The wellness vending machine removes the barrier of access to products students might need,” said Jessica Greene, assistant director of Health Promotion and Wellness for URI Health Services. “All of the products are also available at the URI Health Services’ pharmacy, but the vending machine is available 24/7.”

Convenience isn’t the only incentive for using the machine. The machine holds some items students might feel uncomfortable asking for in person, including sexual or reproductive health products, such as emergency contraception, condoms, lubricant, and pregnancy tests, and harm reduction products, such as a fentanyl test strip kit and naloxone, which is an opioid-overdose antidote often carried by first responders.

Other products in the machine include over-the-counter pain relievers, allergy medicines, relief for an upset stomach, skin and oral health products, COVID-19 test kits, hand sanitizer, disposable face masks, Band-Aids, menstrual products, eye drops, and sleep kits.

Items that are available to students for free from Health Services during regular hours, cost 10 cents from the machine. The 10 cents serves as a “restocking fee.” Other products range from $2 to $8.

For now, only the RAM card can be used to make purchases. This allows those who manage the machine to notice purchasing trends, such as when purchases are made and the most and least popular items. All information is kept strictly confidential.

The College of Pharmacy purchased the machine and conducted student surveys to determine what students thought should be stocked. Health Services maintains the machine by refilling supplies once or twice a week, and more often when needed.

“This has been a great collaboration between Health Services and the College of Pharmacy,” said Jennifer Hodshon, director of Health Services. “Wellness vending machines are a huge trend right now in college health.”

As of March 2025, an estimated 131 universities in 28 states and Washington D.C. have at least one of these vending machines on campus, according to the American Society for Emergency Contraception.

URI’s program got off the ground thanks to pharmacy students Hannah Iarussi, Amanda Blais, and Emily Lancor, all PharmD ’24, who approached Jeffrey Bratberg, a clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy, with the idea for the vending machine in the fall of 2022.

“They attended a student pharmacy conference, where they learned about another university’s wellness vending machine,” said Bratberg, who knew the students through a course he instructed at URI.

The students presented a proposal for the machine to the vice president of URI’s Division of Student Affairs and it was approved. After researching new and used vending machines, Bratberg and the students discovered two that they were able to purchase from the URI bookstore using grant funds.

An anonymous pre-activation survey was conducted from Oct. 25 to Dec. 25, 2023, to determine which products students would want available to them. A total of 239 students accessed the survey, with 80% of the respondents being female. Asked which categories of products they’ve used in the last year, pain relievers, COVID-19 prevention materials, and sexual health products were the most popular categories.

Guided by this feedback, the vending machine was launched on Feb. 7, 2024. A second anonymous survey was distributed from Jan. 24 to Feb. 21, 2025, to gauge student use of the machine, as well as how to enhance the experience, generating a higher student response (303), with similar demographics.

Asked what their main reason was for using the machine, 42% of the respondents cited reduced price, followed by accessibility (19%) and privacy (17%). Students were also asked if the addition of a kiosk, which would allow students to enter health symptoms and receive drug information, would be beneficial—75% answered “yes.”

The details of the first survey were published in April in the Journal of American College Health, which essentially found the deployment of the first machine to be a success. The team’s findings confirmed their hypothesis that the vending machine would expand access to necessary healthcare, because students used the vending machine most often when the conventional pharmacy at Health Services was closed.

Based on its success, a second vending machine is planned soon for a location in the Memorial Union. Together, the team is also continuing to work on the logistics of implementing a drug information kiosk with a symptom algorithm based on the results of the second survey.

The vending machine has already been the subject of two podcasts, The Rhody Wellness Podcast, produced by Health Services, and The Regimen, a public health podcast hosted by Bratberg.