The Health & Wellness Coalition is currently funded by three state-wide grants:

The fiscal agent for the three grants and Coalition is the Medical Society of Sedgwick County. 

The Pathways initiative, known as Pathways to a Healthy Kansas, is the largest community grant initiative ever funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas. It combines community-wide, evidence-based solutions and practices to help Kansas communities improve active living, healthy eating, and tobacco prevention. The initiative provides community coalitions with the tools and resources needed to engage their communities and remove barriers to healthy living. Pathways started in 2016 with eight communities and expanded to 16 communities in 2017. In 2020, the Pathways initiative started a second phase of work with a total of 24 communities – 12 new and 12 returning communities from across the BCBSKS service area. Blue Cross provides each community with technical assistance for planning, evaluation, communications and measurement through partnerships with Wichita State University’s Community Engagement Institute, Kansas Health Institute, Seed 2 Roots and other organizations.

Addressing Three Key Risk Factors

Increasing physical activity, healthy eating and avoiding commercial tobacco use are among the best ways to lower risk for developing chronic diseases and to live healthier, longer. These are the factors Pathways is designed to address in communities.

The Pathways

Many paths must come together to make real, sustainable change in a community. That’s why grantees are required to generate cross-sector engagement. Community pathways are designed to help the coalition take a holistic, community-wide approach to improving health outcomes by addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH). Social determinants are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age that fundamentally affect a wide range of health outcomes and risk (CDC). Pathways align with the Kaiser Family Foundation’s framework for the social determinants of health and focus on areas that impact community health across multiple factors: Community & Social Context, Neighborhood & Physical Environment, Food, Healthcare, Education, and Economic Stability. By using this framework for each pathway, this initiative will strive to improve conditions that are the drivers of health in a community. 

Pathways community work is compiled in the data dashboard. Visit this dashboard to see how Pathways funds are working to increase access to health and improve quality of life for you and your neighbors. The dashboard includes:

  • A map of counties in the 2025-2026 cycle
  • Single community snapshots
  • Implementation grant status for active packages
  • Implementation grant summary table, and more. 

The Health & Wellness Coalition is coordinating the work of the five packages and community partners are identified as stakeholders. 

  1. Economic Stability Pathway, Food Pantry package led by Jay Hawes and Living Waters Ministries
  2. Education Access & Quality Pathway, Healthier Child Care Facility package, this stakeholder will be announced soon.
  3. Healthcare Pathway, Community Health Needs Assessment/Improvement Plan Support led by Chris Steward and the Sedgwick County Health Department
  4. Neighborhood & Built Environment Pathway, Gardens and Community Farm package led by Thomas Motiel and ICT Farms
  5. Social & Community Context Pathway, Healthier Communal Meals led by Jay Hawes and Living Waters Ministries. 

The pictures represent a recent meeting discussing the population of focus survey results for the Food Pantry and Communal Meals packages. 

For more information about this grant work, contact Shelley at hwcwichita@gmail.com

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas

For more than 80 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas has built a reputation of trust with its members and contracting providers by providing outstanding customer service while quickly and accurately processing claims; fairly administering benefit plans and contracts; offering programs, services and tools to help members improve or maintain their health; and operating under the highest ethical standards while being good stewards of premium dollars. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and is the state’s largest insurer, serving all Kansas counties except Johnson and Wyandotte. For more information, visit bcbsks.com.