Collaborating and Educating to Close the Racial Health Gap

The biggest driver of poor health outcomes among Black Americans is a lack of access to vital health information, care and resources. To address this problem, there must be more support and investment in care models and solutions that include robust community and social impact initiatives. Our communities need more organizations to step up and commit resources to address these disparities. At Johnson & Johnson (J&J), we are doing our part by leveraging longstanding partnerships, dedicated employees and robust company resources to implement impactful programs.

With more than 130,000 employees across the world, J&J recognizes the significance of diverse perspectives, cultures, abilities and experiences in shaping transformative healthcare solutions. J&J is on a mission to create a healthier, more equitable world, and we know we can’t achieve our goal if we don’t eliminate healthcare disparities for people of color. Rooted in Our Credo, the values of diversity, equity and inclusion have been a part of our culture for more than a century. 

In 2020, we launched Our Race to Health Equity (ORTHE), a five-year initiative focused on eradicating racial and social injustice as a public health threat through investments in health equity solutions. As part of that platform, we developed My Health Can’t Wait, an educational resource hub that expands access to vital health information and support in communities of color. These initiatives connect local organizations and healthcare providers to offer health information and screenings at in-person wellness events, and has reached thousands of community members while enabling J&J to uncover valuable data that could lead to better health outcomes for Black Americans.

We’ve also established several other health equity programs aimed at diseases that disproportionately affect Black communities. Our Talk That Talk™ educational campaign was created to normalize prostate health discussions among Black men and inspire them to proactively get screened. And because Black Americans are more than twice as likely to have peripheral artery disease (PAD) than white Americans, we created our Save Legs, Change Lives initiative to drive research and offer local screening and education events.

Closing the racial health gap requires a lens toward diversity and representation as a foundation, including clinical trial design. In 2022, J&J’s Innovative Medicine team launched a first of-its-kind clinical study, VISIBLE, exclusively dedicated to understanding plaque psoriasis in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color). In oncology, our team was among the first organizations to proactively submit a diversity plan to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for an oncology trial – well ahead of the agency’s new guidance on initiatives to expand action and disclosure on clinical trial diversity. 

As of 2023, we have invested over $60 million in programs that increased opportunities for equitable healthcare for more than 3.2 million people of color in the U.S.

Partnering while Living Our Values

To remain true to our purpose and Credo, J&J invests in people and the communities we serve. In 1963, J&J leaders met with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and one of the topics they discussed was increasing the hiring of Black employees. In 1969, J&J recruited at 21 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and established ongoing co-op programs with three of the schools.

Over the last 60 years, we’ve leveraged our longstanding relationship with the NUL to identify talent and increase the number of Black Americans in the healthcare workforce at J&J and externally. Early trailblazers such Nancy Lane, J&J’s first Black female Vice President; Harold Sims, our first Black Vice President of Corporate Affairs; and Ollice Holden, a Black senior Operations & Materials Buyer at J&J -- were all active leaders within the NUL.

Today, we actively recruit diverse employees because we know that doing so is vital to our ability to accelerate innovation and solve the specific needs of the populations we serve. As of 2022, we have 35% ethnic/racial diversity in management positions in the U.S. 

Educating and Building a Diverse Health Workforce

J&J continues to invest in the next generation of healthcare workers and providers to help improve health outcomes in the communities we serve. 

We are proud of our partnership with the National Black Nurses Association to support nurses of color in taking leadership roles, and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation supports the Alliance for Inclusion in Medical Scholarship Program to provide financial assistance to underrepresented medical students. Our Pharmacy Student Scholarship awards two-year scholarships to underrepresented students at U.S.-accredited HBCU schools of pharmacy. In addition, J&J Innovative Medicine advances graduate and postdoctoral scientists in underrepresented groups through our Scholars of Oncology Diversity Engagement Program and the Diversity in Discovery and Development (4D) Fellowship Program, in partnership with Drexel University.

To strengthen the talent pipeline of Black leaders, we collaborate with The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) Institute for Leadership Development & Research to offer programs that focus on growth at different career levels. We also worked with the ELC to launch a scholarship program that provides financial assistance and other resources to Black students who have a passion for STEM, business or healthcare-related fields.

Across our J&J MedTech portfolio, we maintain several programs to advance awareness, education and healthcare access while investing in building a population of diverse surgeons and frontline healthcare workers to support effective and empathetic treatment for people of color. As a founding sponsor of MedTech Color (MTC) for example, J&J supports MTC’s continuing mission to provide career pathways for Black job-seekers in the medical device industry. 

J&J MedTech also partners with organizations such as Advances in Surgery (AIS), the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and other like-minded stakeholders to advance DEI education across the healthcare industry. 

Promoting Health for Everyone

Sixty years since The Civil Rights Act was passed, injustice in healthcare faced by people of color in the U.S. persists. While the healthcare disparities we face cannot be solved by one entity alone, we believe our strength in healthcare innovation and the passion that drives us to achieve the best version of health for everyone empowers us to lead in rebuilding healthcare with solutions that address racial health inequities. 

We lead with care and courage— and by forging enduring and impactful partnerships with others who share our values. Working together with NUL, companies, policymakers, advocacy organizations and academic institutions, we can shape a future in which equitable opportunities and good health are within reach for everyone – regardless of the color of their skin.