On September 29, 2018, the Global Citizen Festival in New York, N.Y., brought together thousands of Global Citizens, advocates, activists, celebrities, policymakers, non-government organizations, and corporations who share one common goal: to end extreme global poverty, by taking action on key challenges around the world related to health, education, and equality. As a global leader focused on profoundly changing the trajectory of human health, Johnson & Johnson served as Global Citizen’s Major Health Partner for the third consecutive year to raise awareness of the critical importance of front line health workers, including nurses, in increasing access to essential care around the world.
In partnering with the Global Citizen Festival, Johnson & Johnson hopes to help address pressing public health challenges, and transform the lives of millions of people around the world. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson hopes to raise awareness of the power of front line health workers in increasing access to essential care.
At this year’s festival, Johnson & Johnson announced the formation of the Health For All coalition, a new collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Citizen, and government partners from Norway, to ensure that hundreds of thousands of front line health workers receive education and tools to save and improve lives. One area that the partnership will focus on is supporting female health workers – 5 billion out of 7 billion people in the world are cared for by a female health worker, yet gender bias remains a critical challenge in preventing women from achieving leadership roles.
Ultimately, the goal of Health For All is to bring together the public and private sectors, along with global citizens, to advocate for the choices that will lead people around the world on the path towards Health For All. But progress will be impossible without support from the international community and the training of health workers and caregivers on the ground where help is needed the most.
An important additional announcement took place as well, as a follow-up to an announcement made at the 2017 Global Citizen Festival, where Paul Stoffels, MD, vice chair of the executive committee and chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, announced the company’s commitment to large-scale study to test a new HIV vaccine.
This year, Stoffels provided an exciting update on the progress that Johnson & Johnson and its partners have made toward developing this vaccine; there are five African countries participating in a new study titled “IMBOKODO,” which enrolls hundreds of young women ages 18-35 who are at risk of becoming infected with HIV. Watch Stoffels’ announcement here:
Nurses have long been at the forefront of caring for patients with HIV and AIDS, and Johnson & Johnson celebrates nurses who are changing human health. You can learn more about nurses’ commitment to these patients, and how Johnson & Johnson has supported nurses throughout history, by watching our new commercial:
Learn more about Global Citizen and how you can get involved here. You can learn more about how Johnson & Johnson supports front line health workers like nurses here.
