Appropriate use of emergency contraception within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse can decrease the risk of pregnancy by 75 to 85 per cent. In 2002 when this study began, emergency contraceptive pills (ECP) were only available with a doctor's prescription in most part of Canada, a requirement that slowed women's access to this medication when they need it most.

The Emergency Contraception Pilot Project led by Dr. Sheila Dunn from the Bay Centre for Birth Control and pharmacist Tom Brown tested a model for making emergency contraceptive pills more available via pharmacy distribution. The project included a training program for pharmacists involved in the study and a hotline where women could learn more about emergency birth control options. Operating from June 2002 to June 2003, the study allowed researchers to document how women would use such a service, and it demonstrated the kind of training and resources that pharmacists would need to offer ECP directly.

During the one-year pilot, there were 14,188 calls to the emergency contraception project hotline and 7,074 visits to project pharmacies for emergency contraception. Fifty-four percent of the women accessed EC within 24 hours of intercourse. The majority of women were very satisfied with the service, and 21.1 per cent indicated that had they not obtained EC in this way, they would not have obtained it elsewhere.

In May 2004, the Federal government proposed amending the Canadian Food and Drug Act to allow a process of pharmacy distribution similar to the ECP study and these legislative changes were finally implemented in 2005. After the initial announcment in 2004, the Canadian Pharmacists Association developed an online education program for pharmacists in anticipation of the regulatory change. The CPA used expertise from the ECP research team to develop their materials.

Currently Dr. Sheila Dunn of the Bay Centre is working with pharmacist Tom Brown to explore the impact of recent changes to federal regulations which now allow emergency contraception (the "morning after pill") to be distributed without a prescription from behind the pharmacy counter. One year after these regulatory changes, the study will evaluate how access to ECP has been affected with a particular focus on pharmacy-related factors.