Pfizer’s Multicultural Health Equity Collective Marks 10 Years of Progress

Marginalized communities in the United States have faced generations of health inequities due to systemic discrimination embedded into our healthcare system. Life expectancy in the U.S., for instance, masks significant racial and ethnic disparities – the average life expectancy for non-Hispanic American Indians or Alaska Natives is seven years lower than it is for non-Hispanic whites.¹

Pfizer is committed to working with our multicultural partners to help eliminate health disparities and improve health equity. We are proud of The Collective’s impact over the last ten years and support its mission to make a difference in the health and wellness of diverse communities.

A decade ago, despite many existing partnerships with multicultural groups, Pfizer recognized a need to address persistent health inequities more holistically and work alongside organizations and leaders to truly understand and help address the unique and evolving needs of marginalized communities. To be successful, Pfizer sought to demonstrate behaviors that earn trust and take initiative to establish long-term relationships with organizations that could harness the power of community and partnership to help create sustainable change.

In 2014, Pfizer established what was then known as the “Pfizer Multicultural Center of Excellence” to strengthen relationships with national and local organizations serving marginalized and underserved communities and help expand access to care, increase health literacy, and support advocacy efforts.

In the last 10 years, this iniative has evolved to become a cooperative of Pfizer colleagues and 40+ diverse nonprofit partners and advocates, called the Pfizer Multicultural Health Equity Collective (The Collective), which serves as a convener across the healthcare ecosystem, creating space for diverse organizations to collaborate, learn and act together to make better health possible for the communities they serve.

As trusted and invaluable partners, The Collective’s work is guided by the Pfizer Multicultural Advisory Council (PMAC)—a core set of leaders from multicultural organizations who help inform The Collective’s priorities, engage with Pfizer on vital health and policy issues, and provide counsel on specific Pfizer initiatives.

Together The Collective partners have hosted over 660 community outreach events, reaching approximately 1.5 million people across the United States since 2014. These engagements have ranged from partner conferences, health education workshops, community health fairs and more.

To meet communities where they are, for example, The Collective has partnered with the Hispanic Federation and the National Urban League to help expand access to quality healthcare for marginalized and underserved communities by facilitating culturally preventive care interventions. Through the “Yo Me Cuido” and “Take Action for Health” health fairs, The Collective supports local communities and provides direct access to free health screenings, referrals to medical care and culturally relevant health information. These health fairs have reached more than 28,000 individuals across 15 cities in the U.S.—and growing.

Thanks to the foundational relationships in place, when Pfizer and BioNTech took on the challenge to develop a vaccine in 2020 to help protect against COVID-19, The Collective partners answered an urgent call to action to engage multicultural communities in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 clinical trials. The members fed into messaging and recruitment approaches and helped raise awareness among communities historically underrepresented in clinical trials. Their guidance and grassroots efforts helped ensure greater representation in the trials and demonstrated the importance of multisectoral engagement in building community trust across diverse patient populations.