New grant means support for community health equity programming

Community-based organizations across the state are receiving over $1 million in grants from the biopharmaceutical company Sanofi.

The 13 grants, which mark the inaugural cohort of recipients under the company’s Healthy Futures Solution Fund, will aim to create more equitable access to care across Massachusetts through community-led solutions, especially in historically underserved communities.

“We hope to catalyze locally led solutions to social drivers of health for under-supported populations, collect and codify the innovations of community-facing and neighborhood-trusted organizations for best practices, and shed light on these solutions in the hope of helping others,” said Diana Blankman, head of corporate social responsibility at Sanofi, in an email interview.

The funding targets social determinants of health, the factors in one’s life or environment outside of clinical care that impact their health outcomes — things like access to housing, or healthy food or insurance.

“Health is more than your blood pressure, your blood sugar, it’s all of those factors impacting your health,” said Mary Kathryn Fallon, interim director of The Family Van, a mobile health clinic that serves the Boston area and received funding through the grant program.

Fallon, who said The Family Van has been working with Sanofi for years, said that a focus on the social determinants of health isn’t new for the pharmaceutical company.

“The importance of taking care of the whole person is really what we see as being successful,” Fallon said. “Sanofi sees that as well.”

Blankman said that Sanofi believes that trying to address health inequities at the surface level isn’t an effective solution.

“While you may make some inroads initially, inevitably problems will persist,” Blankman said. “Many of these disparities have existed for a long time and patchwork solutions don’t get to the heart of the issues.”

A welcome support

For organizations across the Boston area, grant funding from Sanofi will mean the ability to continue and expand services.

The Family Van, which served 1,430 individuals last year, according to Fallon, estimates that this year, with expanded hours, they’ll be able to reach 2,000 people.

And that broader reach will also come with more locations, including additional stops for the van in Dorchester and other on-the-ground locations where the team offers the same screenings, testing for high blood pressure, checking blood sugar and cholesterol, as well as providing health education.

Fallon said, too, that the increased funding — The Family Van has previously worked with and received support from Sanofi — will allow the team to enhance culturally responsive services and better address those social determinants of health.

The funds will help invest in workforce development for community health workers to train and receive certification, expand skills and better provide mental health support — The Family Van launched a behavioral and mental health services program, called Healthy Roads, in 2021 — to “foster sustainable improvement in health outcomes,” Fallon said.

“It positions The Family Van to not only meet immediate health needs, but also to contribute to systemic change,” she said.

And at St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children, a Dorchester-based program that provides shelter and support services to women, children and families, the funding will augment existing financial support to continue offering the services it provides.

“What this funding is allowing us to do is continuing our work — actually expanding our work — during this very difficult environment to make sure that our families are not experiencing a deficit in the services that are really needed to break multi-generational poverty and homelessness,” said Alexis Steel, president of St. Mary’s Center.

Federal funding cuts

The funding is especially meaningful in the current political climate as the Trump administration seeks to limit and pull back federal funding, said representatives from recipient organizations.

For St. Mary’s Center, those federal cuts have created uncertainty for the families they serve.

The organization hasn’t yet seen federal funding changes impact their operations directly, but cuts to health and human services programs have had an impact on families, particularly families of color and families with particularly vulnerable statuses, Steel said.

“What the federal funding cuts have really created is an environment of uncertainty for families,” she said.

President Donald Trump’s policy bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives July 3, clearing its way to the president’s desk, is slated to bring changes to federal health care and food access programs.

The version passed by the Senate proposes about $1 trillion in cuts to federal spending on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces over a decade and could lead to 12 million more people without coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The bill also would overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps people buy food when they can’t afford it. Those changes could impact how the program’s 42 million recipients can access food.

The burden proposed by those changes and uncertainty is especially true as the center faces the dual crises of ongoing shelter system challenges in the state.

Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency in August 2023, as surging migration and high housing prices led to an 80% increase in the number of families living in shelters from 2022. In the time since, Healey and the legislature have taken steps to limit how long families can stay in the state’s Emergency Assistance shelters and the overflow shelters it created.

But when the state made the choice to limit the amount of time people can stay in shelters, it also expanded some of the assistance people can receive when they leave, called stabilization supports, Steel said.

The Sanofi funding, Steel said, will help St. Mary’s Center provide those stabilization supports to its Dorchester community, to help address the trauma and inequitable access to social determinants of health that shelter residents often face.

“Those don’t go away. Those don’t become shorter because the timeline within a shelter system becomes shorter,” Steel said.

The funds, she said, will allow the center to go beyond just working with the families it serves to stabilize their situation, but will also break down barriers both within the shelter and after families leave.

And at The Family Van, that shifting federal landscape has raised questions concerning what funding is available and what funding they can get next. Fallon said The Family Van hasn’t relied much on federal funding in the past, but the pullback has left them wondering if they can get more federal funding in the future and how increased draws on city and state funding will impact what they can receive from those sources.

The Sanofi funding, she said, has given consistency to keep the work going and expanding.

“It’s definitely a concern of ours,” Fallon said. “This has really helped us be able to plan and sustain our work.”

Blankman said the Healthy Futures Fund is part of a long-standing belief at Sanofi to invest in “the power of community.” The fund, she said, is designed to build on the existing work of community organizations by providing “much-needed resources.”

“We believe that sustainable health solutions are built in collaboration with those who live and lead in the communities they serve,” she said. “It’s ultimately how we will build a healthier, more equitable future.”

For Steel, the efforts by Sanofi are welcome support. She said she’s grateful that through the grant funding, Sanofi worked to understand where needs exist, by partnering with local organizations.

“They’ve really made a difference in convening and understanding and trying to understand, seeking to understand, and they’re putting [in] the investment that folks and a difficult climate really deserve.”

Partnering with community organizations — especially those with a track record of addressing those social determinants of health in historically underserved communities — is a priority for the company, Blankman said.

“With lived experiences, expertise and relationships embedded in the communities they serve, they are tackling critical issues that range from lack of access to food and housing, to barriers to transportation and health care — all basic necessities that contribute to health and welfare,” she said. “They are trusted messengers with proven track records of delivering meaningful services to those who need it most.”