Hélène Deweerdt, Head of Sisteron industrial site, France
Hélène Deweerdt, Head of Sisteron industrial site, France
Community Engagement
We actively partner with grassroot organizations to ensure our efforts to increase health equity are directly aligned with community needs.
DRIVE Program
To promote sustainable healthy communities across the United States, Sanofi has teamed up with The National Minority Quality Forum’s (NMQF) Center for Sustainable Health Care Quality and Equity (SHC) to develop and support a trusted network of community leaders as they provide education and improve access to medicines and vaccines through physicians, community centers, barber shops and places of worship. Sanofi has successfully collaborated with NMQF’s SHC to create & provide support for online toolkits, roundtable discussions and additional tools to increase education around care and treatment options for patients in underserved communities.
Cancer & Work Global Team, France
SHC’s DRIVE Vaccines
The DRIVE Vaccines program launched in 2018 with the intent to educate and provide services to underserved communities of color on the influenza vaccine and combat vaccine hesitancy as well as cancer screenings, diabetes, lupus, and other health issues. Due to its success, the DRIVE Vaccines program has expanded to encompass 14 states and over 25 health systems, with participation from more than 100 practices and 500 providers. The Drive Vaccines program has helped increase vaccination rates by 5-25% each year in underserved communities:
The Georgia DRIVE Campaign
In 2023, SHC’s DRIVE campaign teamed up with the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians to pilot the DRIVE model into a first of its kind statewide approach making it available to a network of over 4,000 clinicians.
The NOLA Project
In 2021, the DRIVE Diabetes project improved patient activation and reduced A1C and hypertension in hundreds of patients. In 2022, DRIVE SHC supported a program in New Orleans in partnership with The NOLA Project to support flu and covid vaccinations. The program successfully encouraged 75,000 people in New Orleans to receive their flu vaccination.
DRIVE Networks
In partnership with SHC and their grassroot partner organizations, many unique networks of trusted community members have been created. These networks receive ongoing education on different health related topics to educate their specific communities:
Health Champion Network:
With support from Sanofi, NMQF’s Center for Sustainable Healthcare established the Health Champion Network, a network of 27,000 health champions in the U.S. who receive ongoing education as trusted voices to help educate their communities on health topics through monthly webinars.
HAIR Wellness Warriors:
Sanofi has partnered with the HAIR Network to help train barbers and hair stylists as health workers who are equipped to host immunization and screening clinics and educate their communities on health risks.
Faith Health Alliance:
Sanofi is also proud to work with SHC’s Faith Health Alliance network of pastors from Black and Latino congregations across the U.S. who educate their congregations on the importance of the influenza vaccine and protection against type 2 diabetes and cancer screenings. 30 churches and 3 regional networks serving over 5,000 congregants are involved in the program.
Abigail Leavitt and Kara Gilbert, scientists, US
Community Pharmacist Ambassadors Program
With Sanofi’s support SHC’s Community Pharmacist Ambassadors Program was developed in partnership with Nova Scripts Central, this program has trained more than 200 pharmacists to provide health education and services in underserved communities of color around the country.
The National Minority Quality Forum’s Post-Pandemic Vaccine Index
Sanofi is proud to sponsor The National Minority Quality Forum’s Post-Pandemic Vaccine Index, and interactive heat map by zip code across the US, that indicates current Influenza vaccination rates amongst patients living with chronic conditions. This interactive tool aims to better support patients living with a chronic condition as they are often at increased risk of influenza-related complications.
Trusted Messengers Program
Sanofi is the Founding Sponsor of the Allergy & Asthma Network’s Trusted Messengers Program, an initiative focused on removing barriers to care around the influenza and COVID-19 vaccine among underserved and vaccine hesitant populations. Since its launch in 2021, the program has broadened its focus to immunology and concentrates on providing patient education facilitated by trusted community leaders, screening events, assessments and vaccinations, and the acceleration of long-term follow-up care programs to correct disparities in health. Through the Trusted Messengers Program over 4,000 people have been screened for different illnesses, more than 3,000 masks, gloves and hand sanitizer bottles have been provided to communities, over 1,000 food and flu vaccine vouchers have been offered to families, and more than 500 people have received a COVID-19 vaccination.
LA LGBTQ+ and Youth Center Mentoring
Sanofi's joined the LA LGBTQ+ Center and Youth Mentoring program in 2019 and has since connected young people in the LGBTQ+ community who are interested in careers in pharma and biotech with employees in Sanofi’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group. As part of this mentoring program, Sanofi employees conduct panel discussions and 1:1 conversation with youth center members, helping to support and prepare them for their future careers.
Teledermatology Program
In 2023, through Sanofi’s alliance with Regeneron, the companies supported the American Academy of Dermatology’s (AAD) Teledermatology Program which engages board-certified, AAD member dermatologists and residents in training to offer safe and secure telemedicine consultations to underserved communities in their state. Additionally, the program provides a telemedicine platform free of charge to eligible, qualified healthcare centers providing health care services to underserved populations in the United States.
FAIR Time for Women Coalition
Despite the science and research that is available, there is a visible and documented lack of equal and equitable diagnosis, treatment and care for females suffering from hemophilia in the US compared to their male counterparts. This is why Sanofi is a Corporate Partner of FAIR Time for Women Coalition and has signed their pledge encouraging healthcare providers to adopt recommendations for diagnosis and management of inherited bleeding disorders in girls and women created by the National Bleeding Disorder Foundation’s Medical and Scientific Advisory Council.
NJ Legislative Black Caucus Vaccines Webinar
Sanofi Vaccines Medical Director, Dr. Riyadh Muhammad, joined a panel hosted by the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus to discuss vaccine hesitancy among the Black community and ways to rebuild trust. Learnings from the conversation have been incorporated across Sanofi’s vaccine efforts including the DRIVE Vaccines program.
Dr. Muhammad was joined by Senator Troy Singleton of New Jersey, who played the role of moderator, Amanda Medina-Forrester, Executive Director of the Office of Minority and Multicultural Health at the New Jersey Department of Health, Dr. Mindy P. Griffith, an endocrinologist in Jersey City and Dr. Shawna Hudson, Vice Chancellor for Dissemination and Implementation Science for Rutgers Health and Senior Associate Dean for Population Health Research at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The full panel can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agHYUgi_JcU
Reducing Barriers to Clinical Trial Participation
Sanofi joined several leading health care organizations in supporting a bill that aims to increase patients’ access to clinical trials. The law attempts to reduce financial barriers to clinical trial participation. Costs associated with participating in clinical trials such as transportation, lodging and child-care can be paid by independent third-party organizations who can establish a program to provide reimbursement to subjects for these ancillary costs.
These organizations must not be a host of the trial or directly affiliated with it. The bill enjoyed broad support from the legislature and testimony from patient groups indicated they believe eliminating these barriers will broaden the diversity of patients enrolled in clinical trials.
BIONJ Health Equity in Clinical Trials MBA Business Plan Case Competition
Sanofi is proud to have helped sponsor and participate on the judging panel for BIONJ’s Inaugural Health Equity in Clinical Trials MBA Business Plan Case Competition. Eight teams of MBA students from top universities throughout the U.S., competing for more than $20,000, were tasked with developing a business plan that defined a new solution, application or technology to increase the participation of historically marginalized groups in a clinical trial.