Developing lifesaving treatments and preventive therapeutics and supporting the health workforce is at the heart of Johnson & Johnson’s mission to improve the trajectory of health for everyone, everywhere. The company knows these innovations are impactful only when they reach people in need.
That’s why Johnson & Johnson is proud to be recognized as a top five company by the Access to Medicine Index (ATMI) for efforts to close the gap between communities and care. This marks more than a decade that Johnson & Johnson has ranked among the top five performers in the ATMI, an independent report card that publishes every two years and ranks the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies on their efforts to expand access to medicines and health technologies in lower- and middle-income countries.
A commitment to caring
In the new report, released today, the company snagged the number five spot overall, reflecting Johnson & Johnson’s deep history of ensuring people in underserved communities receive the treatments they need.
“Our decade-plus high performance in the ATMI is the result of our mission to break down barriers to care,” says Howard Reid, Global Head of Global Health Equity at Johnson & Johnson. “By collaborating with community-based organizations and deploying our unique capabilities and reach, we have supported nearly 2.3 million health workers, helping to strengthen health systems.”
Take, for example, Johnson & Johnson’s commitment to eliminating soil-transmitted helminths (a.k.a. intestinal worms). Among the most common infections around the world, intestinal worms result from exposure to contaminated soil, food or water in areas with poor sanitation. Children are especially vulnerable to this parasitic infection, which can lead to stunted growth, malnutrition and impaired cognitive development.
Since 2006, Johnson & Johnson has donated more than 2.4 billion doses of its medicine for intestinal worms and has committed to expand global product donations to make up to 1 billion doses available through 2030.
The company is also focusing its efforts on the greatest challenge to ending tuberculosis (TB): underdiagnosis. By supporting community-led programs to help reach the “missing millions” of people living with undiagnosed TB, Johnson & Johnson has helped engage more than 120 million people at risk of living with undiagnosed TB and screened more than 600,000 at-risk individuals, helping to refer more people to care so they can be diagnosed and started on treatment.
Empowering healthcare providers
As a healthcare leader, Johnson & Johnson is championing nurses and health workers to support a strong workforce that is equipped to serve patients and improve health outcomes in their communities. The company is proud to have reached more than 2.28 million health workers. This includes 100,000 community health workers in Kenya, where the Johnson & Johnson Foundation supported an initiative to integrate these workers into the country’s health system to support health for all Kenyans.
The company is continuing to build on this work. Recently, Johnson & Johnson and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation announced a collaborative effort with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand support for health workers across Latin America and the Caribbean through the Americas Health Corps and its goal to train 500,000 health workers.
These are just some of the ways the company works to reinforce the values made clear in Our Credo: “We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well,” says the company’s mission statement. “We must help people be healthier by supporting better access and care in more places around the world.”
