Food Insecurity in Kansas City: A Social Determinant of Health

Running head: SHD: FOOD INSECURITY IN KANSAS CITY 1
SHD: Food Insecurity in Kansas City
Name
Institutional Affiliation

SHD: FOOD INSECURITY IN KANSAS CITY 2
SDH: Food Insecurity in Kansas City
Social Determinant of Health: Food Insecurity in Kansas City
Food insecurity is the chosen social determinant of health in Kansas City which has
produced risks and outcomes. One in six individuals in Kansas City is food insecure. Three
hundred and fifty thousand people in Kansas City community do not know where their next
meals will come from. Amongst these 350, 000 people, 100, 000 are children. Food insecurity in
Kansas City is linked to multiple poor health outcomes among adults. This includes a range of
complex chronic conditions: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure (HBP), high cholesterol,
poor mental health, depression, obesity, and higher medical costs (Mari, 2017).
Initiatives Used Currently
Kansas City currently uses a range of ways to tackle food insecurity problem via the
local public health department. The Blue KC’s initiative focuses on food security based on the
understanding that food is medicine as well as the foundation to good health. The local health
department launched its signature community impact program called “Well Stocked” in the year
2018 with the vision to increase the access to nutritious food in the Kansas City’s underserved
areas (Dailey et al., 2015).
The department has partnered with local organizations to speak to hunger disparity
effectively. The department has also declared the Transforming KC Health Research Grant
aiming at awarding up to 400,000$ over the coming two years to the organization that works
together to comprehensively research health outcomes where food insecure families have
accessibility to healthy food. Such partnerships shall assist the department in broadening its
reach and subsequently making meaningful community influence (Tilden, Cox, Moore & Naylor,
2018).

SHD: FOOD INSECURITY IN KANSAS CITY 3
Proposed Resolution
The department of local health should increase its partnership with Humana to help the
organization achieve its bold goal of twenty percent healthier by 2020. This will help boost the
partnership between the Kansas City Metro Region in Kansas and Missouri to effectively work
together to be amongst the healthiest cities in America (Smith, Malinak, Chang, Perez, Perez,
Settlecowski & Aedo, 2017). This solution is sufficient since it is based on the realization by
Humana and the local health department that health takes place locally and hence the reason
Humana is increasingly working with the Kansas City community, clinicians, and physician
partners to assist in solving the toughest impediments to health in Kansas City. Thus, when the
local health department increases their collaboration with Humana and even adequately fund
them, they will work together to make the health even easier one community and one person
simultaneously.
Through this strong partnership with Humana, the local health department will be able to
ensure that the community has easy access to healthy food because Humana has established
systems that help discourage people from eating fast or convenience foods by making healthier
food options available to the underserved areas. Humana has created a movement that promotes
healthy, and affordable food available in Kansas City neighborhoods by fostering the springing
up farmers markets, healthy corner stores, and community gardens.
Specifically, this solution will help encourage neighborhood stores to carry healthier food
alternatives, inspire businesses and schools to make healthier food alternatives available in
vending machines utilized by employees, students and customers, and to support community
gardens, gardening, farmers markets alongside community supported agriculture, CSA (Huet,
Ford, Edge, Shirley, King & Harper, 2017). This will significantly help tackle the health risks