The City of Kansas City, Missouri Health Department is engaging diverse communities across Kansas City through mobile outreach and the promotion of health-related resources.

Sexual health in Kansas City 

Every year, many residents of Kansas City forgo vital services provided by the City of Kansas City, MO Health Department (KCHD). Sexually transmitted disease (STD) cases have been on the rise in Kansas City for the past few years. From 2018 to 2019, Kansas City’s syphilis case number increased by 71%. In 2016, the disease with the highest rate of prevalence in Kansas City was chlamydia, followed by gonorrhea with the third highest. The cost of STDs to the U.S. health system is around $1.6 billion every year, and that doesn’t account for the emotional costs and lost school time that students who have STDs must bear. 

The KCHD has a number of programs designed to reduce spread of STDs among the City’s population. Resources the city offers include free condom distribution, HIV and other STD tests, an interactive sexual health assessment and sexual health seminars and testing opportunities held in the community at large. Unfortunately, most people, and particularly the young people who are often most at-risk, are not aware that the City offers them.

I Got Mine: A website and awareness campaign to connect city resources to those who need them most

As part of a yearlong collaboration between KC Digital Drive’s Code for KC Brigade and Health Innovation Team, a website was produced for the City of Kansas City, MO that serves as a landing site for the City’s I Got Mine campaign. The website hosts a resource database provided and updated by KCHD staff. These resources include STD testing events, static STD testing locations, HIV and PrEP information, symptoms, where to find contraceptive resources, and common misconceptions about STDs and their symptoms. 

Some of this functionality is available through sites like condomfinder.org. The desired outcomes of these sites are increased awareness of the availability of free condoms and increased usage during risky sexual activity. But these existing resources fail to provide the full scope of services the city offers. They also often do not contextualize condom usage in a broader individual and public health context. Crucially, many of the people who need these resources don’t know they exist, which is why a hub like I Got Mine is so helpful. 

The I Got Mine campaign to raise awareness is critical, and the Health Department committed to keeping the site’s resources up to date. The site’s goal is to empower Kansas Citians to be proactive about their sexual health. 

Stakeholders

The website was developed with the help of Code for KC in partnership with the City of Kansas City, MO Health Department and KD Digital Drive’s Health Innovation Team. 

Code for KC, hosted by KC Digital Drive, is the Kansas City branch of Code for America. It is a group of volunteer coders who are interested in using tech for civic good. Click here to learn more about Code for KC and how we build out projects; click here to join us at our next Hack Night.