About Us: Our Work

Improving Access to Health: Mental Health

With the growing prevalence of mental illness among some of the most vulnerable populations, the Astellas Global Health Foundation supports initiatives to improve access to mental healthcare for patients and caregivers in low- and middle-income countries in urgent need of assistance. The Foundation also seeks to help address the lack of proper diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and related conditions within focused populations in need.


Among its grants awarded in these areas

  • The Foundation has awarded two grants to the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), through the Indiana University Center for Global Health and in partnership with Moi Treatment and Referral Hospital, to positively impact more than 600,000 people with expanded mental health support in western Kenya. The Foundation awarded a three-year $1.07M grant to AMPATH in 2022. This grant intends to help AMPATH expand mental health services in Kenya, including enabling an estimated 204,000 people to receive critical medical support and live as valued and respected members of their communities.
  • This support followed an initial three-year $1.35 million grant provided by the Foundation to AMPATH in 2019 during which AMPATH worked to impact more than 400,000 people in Kenya by integrating mental health services into the chronic disease system in public health facilities and broadened population engagement through a mental health awareness campaign. Additionally, AMPATH supported mental healthcare efforts to benefit COVID-19 patients, healthcare workers and the broader community in Kenya, and constructed and opened the MTRH Nawiri Recovery and Skills Centre, the country’s first recovery home and skills center for men and women with severe mental health disorders.

85% OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY MENTAL, NEUROLOGICAL AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS IN MANY LOW-AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE TREATMENT THEY NEED

WHO Special Initiative for Health

Improving Access to Health: Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) and Communicable Disease Care and Treatment

The Astellas Global Health Foundation is proud to partner with global charitable organizations by awarding grants for initiatives that support the World Health Organization (WHO) goals to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and communicable diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis) by 2030.1

The Foundation has awarded several grants since its inception intended to make positive and sustained improvements in these areas.

In 2023, The Foundation awarded a three-year grant of more than $1.6 million to help PATH address HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) service delivery barriers in Kenya and other East African countries, through PATH’s comprehensive efforts to strengthen primary care approaches for efficient HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) service delivery.

Visit the news section for additional funding highlights

1World Health Organization website: The Global Health Observatory. Accessed December 4, 2023. Link: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/sdg-target-3_3-communicable-diseases

100% OF LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES ARE AFFECTED BY AT LEAST FIVE NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES SIMULTANEOUSLY

U.S. Centers for Disease Control

Improving Access to Health: Children’s Health

Additional Astellas Global Health Foundation work aligns with providing funding to organizations that seek to help improve access to medicines, nutrition, vaccines, and other measures to vulnerable children. Through its support, the Foundation seeks to have a long-term impact on the health of children given their mortality rates in low- and middle-income communities.

Among its investments in this area:

  • The Foundation announced a nearly $1.7 million grant over three years to Amref Health Africa in 2022 to improve children’s health care in two of the poorest regions in southern Senegal, Kolda and Sédhiou. The support is expected to impact the lives of an estimated 340,000 children in the regions by training and deploying skilled health workers to expand access points for child health services, reaching children who are currently experiencing low immunization rates and lack of clean water.
  • In 2021, the Foundation provided a $400,000 grant for Evidence Action to help provide access to safe water and potentially reduce child morbidity and mortality from diarrheal disease. The support reached more than 1.6 million people in rural, hard-to-reach communities in Uganda through the provision of chlorine dispensers, a free and reliable intervention that makes water safe to drink, reducing the incidence of diarrhea-causing diseases, the second-leading cause of child mortality.
  • This support follows an earlier children’s health investment made in 2019, when the Foundation awarded a nearly $700,000 grant over three years in 2019 to UNICEF USA for its Mothers and Babies in Good Care Initiative in the Dominican Republic (impact: more than 320,000 lives). According to the World Health Organization, women and newborns are most vulnerable during and immediately following childbirth. In the Dominican Republic, 33 of every 1,000 lives births result in a death of a newborn or child prior to age five.1 The Foundation grant was designed to help UNICEF USA address this critical treatment gap. The program interventions focused on decreasing avoidable maternal and neonatal deaths at several Dominican Republic hospitals by increasing the level of compliance with quality standards in antenatal care, labor, birth, newborn attention, and breastfeeding promotion. The funding also helped UNICEF USA provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 education for pregnant and breastfeeding women and families in the Dominican Republic as well as promoting birth registration, which is essential for the future health and well-being of newborns, who need proof of citizenship to access health, education, and other social benefits.

1UNICEF website. UNICEF data. Accessed on December 12, 2023. Link: https://data.unicef.org/country/dom/

LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH IN CHILDREN
UNDER AGE 5 CAN OFTEN BE PREVENTED OR TREATED WITH ACCESS TO
SIMPLE, AFFORDABLE INTERVENTIONS

UNICEF-WHO-World Bank-United Nations Report 2019

Building Resilient Communities and Providing Disaster Support

Astellas Global Health Foundation funding is enabling selected organizations’ efforts to: develop and strengthen inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure within cities and other communities, particularly those in the hardest-to-reach geographies; and support the training and education of workers providing care and education to underserved populations within communities.

In 2023, the Astellas Global Health Foundation provided a one-year, $345,000 grant in 2023 to help International Medical Corps efforts to address severe humanitarian and healthcare crises in Yemen by strengthening healthcare infrastructure and building resilience in 10 vulnerable and hard-to-reach Yemeni communities (projected impact: more than 60,000 lives).

Disaster-Preparedness

Additional Foundation grants focused on strengthening community resilience have included: