Community Grant Initiative
Pathways to a Healthy Kansas
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, behavioral health and commercial tobacco prevention.
About Pathways
The initiative provides community coalitions with the tools and resources needed to engage their communities and remove barriers to healthy living.
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 lives. Behavioral health, which includes both mental health and substance use, are closely connected to these habits. Maintaining physical health in these ways can improve mental well-being, reduce stress and may help prevent the onset or worsening of mental health conditions and improve overall well-being. These are the factors Pathways is designed to address in communities.
Learn more about preventable chronic diseases.
It takes everyone coming together to make real, sustainable change in a community. That's why Pathways takes a holistic, community-wide approach to improving health outcomes by addressing the social determinants of health.
Social determinants of health 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 aligns with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2030 framework for the social determinants of health and focuses on the conditions that are drivers of health in a community: Economic stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context.
Pathways encourages grantees to identify opportunities to improve the health of everyone in their communities and to better understand what factors influence the health of different populations of focus. Populations of focus are those populations that are at a higher risk for poor health because of the barriers they experience to social, economic, and environmental resources, as well as limitations due to illness or disability. This approach ensures that all community members are considered and engaged in projects that impact them.
At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, we value you, your culture and community. By improving outcomes at both the individual and community levels, we’re committed to pursuing a more accessible, inclusive and equitable system that helps everyone reach their full health potential.
Pathways to a Healthy Kansas (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. The most recent phase began in 2025 with 19 communities joining the effort including five new and 14 returning communities.
The Pathways initiative represents a sustained commitment by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas to Kansas communities, and our belief that healthier communities benefit us all.
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.
The Pathways to a Healthy Kansas grant cycle is closed to new communities until fall 2026. Organizations within current Pathways communities can reach out to their grant coordinator for more information about grants that may be available.
Complete our Blue Health Initiatives contact form to be notified of future grant opportunities.
Pathways grantees
Pathways to a Healthy Kansas encourages community coalitions to identify the strategies that will work best for their residents and community culture. Through their projects, Pathways grantees raise up the voices of impacted populations to improve their health and the overall health of everyone in their community.
Follow the link below to learn about each of our grantees and their successes.
Pathways data dashboard
Dive into our data dashboard to learn more about the transformational changes being made in Kansas communities. This dashboard includes detailed information on where we are working, what we are doing and how we are improving the health of Kansas communities.