Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company in Forest City, California, has announced a new health equity collaboration with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education at Xavier University of Louisiana’s College of Pharmacy in New Orleans. The collaboration is focused on addressing the inequities in HIV care for Black communities in the southern United States.
Research shows that inequities drive higher rates of HIV infection, as well as worse HIV clinical outcomes among Black Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted and exacerbated such health inequities. Gilead will fund research at both HBCUs with a total of $4.5 million in funding over a three-year period.
The partnership is intended to close critical gaps in care by:
- Increasing understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare delivery system in the Black community
- Realigning HIV services to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Providing training focused on culturally appropriate HIV care, inclusive of stigma-reducing strategies
- Increasing access to, and utilization of, culturally appropriate care for Black people impacted by the HIV epidemic
“Though the COVID-19 pandemic was a setback to the American healthcare system overall, we must bring to the forefront disproportionately impacted communities who were already historically marginalized prior to the pandemic, including people living with HIV,” said Daniel E. Dawes, the executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. “The Satcher Health Leadership Institute will collaborate with Gilead and Xavier University of Louisiana to ensure these communities are not an afterthought.”
