Raimunda Rosario, Pharmaceutical Operator, Brazil
Raimunda Rosario, Pharmaceutical Operator, Brazil
A Million Conversations
A Million Conversations, Sanofi's global DE&I initiative, works to bridge the healthcare trust gap within marginalized communities across the U.S.
A Million Conversations: Playing Our Part to Rebuild Trust
People need healthcare systems – at all levels – to better reflect society.
So, we must listen to marginalized communities more and use those insights to help the healthcare industry, policymakers and governments to fix the causes of these trust gaps. Our global poll reveals a legacy of distrust in healthcare systems amongst marginalized groups, such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities. In response, Sanofi launched ‘A Million Conversations’, an initiative to bridge that gap by directly engaging with those communities and investing €50m to help close the trust gap substantially by 2030.
As Part of the A Million Conversations Program, Sanofi is simultaneously working with multiple organizations and groups to understand the unmet needs of different communities and rebuild trust of healthcare systems within these communities:
The CHEER Series: Identifying Barriers to Health
Through a multi-year partnership with the Children’s Health Fund, Sanofi supports the CHEER Series (Community Health Equity Education Roundtables), a program that empowers underserved communities to meet regularly to discuss healthcare challenges the community is facing, brainstorm and implement solutions. The program has been launched in a number of cities throughout the U.S. and has already produced tangible results including:
Heart Health for the Hood
Through the Dimock Center in Roxbury, MA, members of the local community identified heart health as a major challenge and developed a project model for heart health street teams. Their goal: empower their community to take charge of their health and reduce health disparities. Launched in 2023, neighborhood youth learned how to take blood pressure readings, analyze data, act as heart health educators in their community and connect residents to care.
Community Cousins
Residents of Trenton, NJ identified a lack of awareness about social service organizations, government programs and services, and municipal resources that can support access to healthcare and improve health outcomes. Meeting attendees brainstormed and developed the “Community Cousins” program, which included an accessible website detailing all of the community's resources as well as advocates to keep the site updated. Participants also envisioned that the Community Cousins program would offer individualized support by assigning interested residents to a "Community Cousin" who could make direct connections between the individual and a given resource based on their unique needs.
Health Starts at Home
Community health workers (CHWs) are lay members of the community who work either for pay or as volunteers in association with the local health care system in both urban and rural environments. They are critical in helping those in underserved communities get access to the care they need but in order to do so, they need to build workforce capacity. In an effort to support CHWs, Sanofi met with the National Association of Community Health Workers (NACHW) to better understand their priorities and learned of the need for a digital platform to unify, train, employ and support the workforce. More than 200 Sanofians across business units worked directly with NACHW to support the development of a comprehensive and easily navigable site that addresses the challenges identified by NACHW, which is the first national platform for community health workers in the country. Sanofi is also a major sponsor of their policy agenda.
The First 5 Minutes
In direct response to community voices urging better patient-clinician relationships to build deeper trust, Sanofi supports the American College of Chest Physicians’ (CHEST) First 5 Minutes program. Through this program, physicians are given resources and trainings on how to best utilize the first few minutes with a patient to build trust. This is incredibly important as studies show that the first five minutes of a patient’s interaction with a physician often results in whether or not a patient trusts a diagnosis and treatment plan. Click here to learn more about the First 5 Minutes program.
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s HEAL Program
Sanofi is a proud and committed supporter of The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s (AAFA) Health Equity Advancement and Leadership (HEAL) program which uses direct feedback, derived from a survey of asthma patients of Black, Hispanic and Indigenous populations, to address health disparities in communities that bear the heaviest burden of asthma. Through the HEAL program, funding and resources are provided to support community-based interventions that address inequities in asthma and are tailored to at-risk populations most impacted by asthma and allergies.
Click here to learn more about AAFA’s HEAL program.
Health Equity in Hemophilia B
In partnership with The Coalition for Hemophilia B, Sanofi is driving a research project to better understand the unique challenges faced by underrepresented populations in the Hemophilia B community. This project aims to inform changes to policy and system solutions by exploring the current state of care and services among underrepresented communities and identifying key barriers that people with hemophilia B in these communities’ face.
Health Equity Acceleration & Advocacy Community of Practice
Sanofi launched a community of practice in April 2023 which is now comprised of more than 200 advocates from more than 90 advocacy organizations working to share solutions that work to improve health equity. The Community of Practice meets together to share best practices, exchange pragmatic information and find insights to improve and accelerate our impact for patients. The group holds quarterly webinars on topics recommended by community members. More information about the group and to sign up to join our community click here.