When Betsy Coble moved from Illinois to Wood County’s Perrysburg seven years ago, she didn’t expect to become the unofficial guardian of medication safety for her apartment community. She arrived with few belongings, intending only to help her sister after a family loss. But in the tight-knit senior housing complex where she settled, Betsy quickly became something more: a connector, a helper, and eventually a quiet leader of Ohio State’s Generation Rx program.
“I’m one of the younger ones here,” she jokes. “But I grew up with the older generations. My mom had friends who were all older than her, so I have fun here.”
That comfort and her willingness to step up were exactly what made her the perfect partner for Susan Zies, assistant professor and Ohio State University Extension educator in Wood County. When Zies brought the Generation Rx program to the apartment complex, she needed someone who could gather residents, encourage participation and help the lessons stick.
Coble didn’t hesitate. “Anytime Susan needs older people, she comes to me,” she laughed. “And if you say there’s going to be pizza, people show up.” More than 25 residents attended that first training, which is nearly a quarter of her building’s residents.
For older adults, Zies says the goals are simple but urgent: “Learn to safely dispose of their medications, be their own advocate, lock up medications, store them safely, and establish a relationship with a pharmacist.”
Generation Rx began at Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy in 2007, created to address what faculty saw as “the rise in prescription opioid deaths,” said Kelsey Schmuhl, clinical assistant professor and director of Generation Rx at the university.