Swope Health announces a new edition of its podcast, One on One with Swope Health, featuring Dan Cranshaw, executive director of KC Health Collaborative.
Eric Wesson, founder and publisher of The Next Page KC, a newspaper focused on the Black community, hosts the show’s conversations with Kansas Citians about issues of importance to the community’s health and wellbeing.
KC Health Collaborative is a non-profit that brings together healthcare-related businesses and organizations to work together to drive healthcare innovation, improve population health, and promote health equity in the Kansas City region. One of its key initiatives is the Health Equity Learning Action Network. (Swope Health is a member of the network.)
In this conversation, Cranshaw described how he came to the organization from a 20-year career in law, including several years of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion work and several years of service on local boards focusing on economic development, affordable housing and health equity. (Cranshaw is a former member of the Swope Health Board of Directors.)
The organization was founded in 2015 by Blue KC with a goal of providing health access and lowering costs. The collaborative focuses on addressing the social drivers of health and advancing health equity. The organization recently compiled a report card of regional health data.
“I think we are getting better, but it depends – it depends on where you live,” Cranshaw said. He noted that in the KC metro area, ZIP code 64113 (Brookside) has the highest life expectancy in the state, while just a few blocks away, zip code 64128 has the lowest. “We’ve got to do better,” he said. “It’s not just a black and brown issue. It impacts the entire region.”
The goal, he said, is inclusive prosperity. Economic development should use relevant data to drive sound policy, he said. Health inequity is a pandemic, but it can be fixed.
Cranshaw notes the city leaders are engaged in significant discussions about the Royals, Chiefs and the FIFA World Cup. But, he noted, there isn’t much discussion about Kansas City’s Eastside.
“We’re not talking about affordable housing, economic development on the east side,” he said. One example is transportation policy. For FIFA, the city will provide free transportation to the stadium locations, the Crossroads, Downtown and the airport among other venues. Cranshaw challenges: Why can’t we make this the the backbone of a regional transportation system that supports our workers?
He argues that addressing the social drivers of health can improve lives and the KC Health Collaborative intends to deliver the data that can inform better decision making for investments and business development.
Listen to the conversation: https://youtu.be/Pg6TpKrW_Lk
