Vitamin Angels, a public health nonprofit which seeks to improve nutrition worldwide, discussed its efforts in 2021, which were focused on reducing barriers to accessing essential nutrition among underserved pregnant women and children both in the U.S. and globally. Vitamin Angels partners were able to extend their services further than ever before, the organization reports.

“Although 2021 was a tough year for our world, I am so proud of the Vitamin Angels team for continuing our work and expanding our reach to even more women and children who need essential nutrition the most," Howard Schiffer, Vitamin Angels founder and president, said. "Our achievements wouldn't have been possible without the support of our long-standing corporate partners and donors, whom gave more generously in 2021 than ever before."

By year’s end, Vitamin Angels reached a total of 70 million underserved pregnant women and children in 65 countries, including all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico through a network of 1,200 program partners.

Specific initiatives that further expanded reach and supported program partners included:

- Expanded implementation research activities across 9 countries to further inform the introduction, implementation, and scale-up of its prenatal vitamins and minerals program. These countries included Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, and the DRC;

- Strengthened monitoring and evaluation programs to accurately track decreased barriers to coverage, effective implementation, and increased coverage;

- The launch of a monitoring and supervisory checklist for program partners on a mobile app to assess supply availability, training, performance of service providers, and amount of inventory.

Noted Highlights

Vitamin Angels also joined the healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Consortium, which works to improve maternal nutrition through collective action by its members to improve the use of MMS (multivitamin/mineral supplements) in low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Kristen M. Hurley, Vitamin Angels senior vice president for nutrition, serves on the steering committee for the organization.

Thanks to a letter of support written by Vitamin Angels and other public health organizations and stakeholders, the World Health Organization has added MMS to its list of essential medicines, the organization noted.

The organization also saw a 22% increase in corporate partnerships in 2021 with its long-standing partners giving more generously than ever before. Walgreens, for instance, reached a significant milestone of reaching 300 million women and children through their partnership, and launched a new prenatal pilot program in Chicago. The program distributes free prenatal vitamins and minerals to underserved pregnant women in 16 Chicago Walgreens stores. Other corporate partners who gave generously in 2021 included SmartyPants, who marked the milestone of reaching 20 million women and children and set a new goal of 100 million reached by the end of 2022, Bayer, and Goli Nutrition.

This year, Vitamin Angels also launched a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative, through the appointment of a DEI council, the launch of a DEI action plan and culture app, and DEI-focused training for all of its staff. The action plan focused on hiring, training, career advancement, partnerships, communications, and leadership. In 2022, the DEI council will focus on furthering the execution of prioritized DEI actions and measuring results.