Kaiser Permanente Northern California
2022 Community Health Snapshot
Our commitment to our communities
Improving health and achieving health equity in our communities requires more than high-quality medical care. Everyone needs and deserves an affordable place to call home, enough money to pay the bills, nutritious food to eat, and accessible health care.
We release our 2022 Community Health Snapshot knowing too many people in our Northern California communities are struggling to meet these basic needs. Our latest assessment of community health needs confirmed access to health care, mental health services, economic opportunities, and housing remain persistent barriers to good health.
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We also invested in many new partnerships to improve mental health in our communities. These include strengthening NAMI California’s valuable services, supporting youth mental health with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, and addressing culturally relevant access to mental health care with Black Women Organized for Political Action and Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, to name a few.
Through our Stop Anti-Asian Hate and Violence Initiative, we supported violence prevention programs and direct mental health care for victims with nonprofit partners Asian Law Caucus and Asian Health Services, among others.
We are also proud to partner with the California Black Freedom Fund and the Latino Community Foundation to strengthen Black- and Latino-led grassroots organizations to advance equity in California.
In the stories below, you’ll see how we addressed other priority health needs, and you’ll hear from our community partners and the individuals they help every day. Our Communities We Serve Section details the work we do across Northern California.
Improving community health is a collective endeavor. We extend our gratitude to our physician and employee volunteers for their dedication to our mission and to our community partners for their collaboration and unwavering commitment to our communities. One of the many lessons we learned from the pandemic is how we can meet some of the world’s most serious challenges and save lives, working together with a shared commitment to health and equity for all.
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Carrie Owen Plietz, FACHE
President
Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals
Yvette Radford
Vice President
External and Community Affairs
Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Supporting
community mental health
With increased demand for mental health care and a persistent nationwide shortage of mental health professionals, Kaiser Permanente supported programs to increase access to care in the community and to develop a larger, more diverse professional workforce. We also invested in programs to reduce mental health stigma, prevent and treat trauma, promote the well-being of students and school staff, and expose young people to mental health careers. Read on for examples of our work.
Delivering mental health care at school
The damaging effects of the pandemic on youth highlighted the need for mental health services in schools. Our grant to a statewide nonprofit is helping to fill this gap and expand school-based mental health services.
Healing the trauma of wrongful conviction and imprisonment
With help from Kaiser Permanente, the nonprofit Exonerated Nation provided mental health services and other support for people sent to prison for crimes they did not commit.
Inspiring future mental health professionals
To help build the future mental health workforce pipeline, Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals met regularly with high school students to talk about career pathways, succeeding in college, and the realities of working in the field.
Improving
conditions for health and equity
Because good health requires more than high-quality medical care, we invested in programs that address the root causes of health, including access to nutritious food and affordable, stable housing. We supported initiatives that provide healthy meals to people in need, assistance with CalFresh enrollment, medical respite for unhoused people discharged from hospitals, and more. Read on for examples of our work.
A community kitchen for Oakland’s unhoused
Kaiser Permanente support helped restaurants and residents provide healthy and home-cooked meals for people experiencing homelessness.
Building affordable housing, generational wealth
With financial support and passionate volunteers, Kaiser Permanente partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build 42 affordable townhomes in Walnut Creek for first-time homeowners.
Medical respite center offers a place to heal
Medical respite centers provide a safe place for unhoused patients to heal after they are discharged from the hospital. Kaiser Permanente and our community partners expanded these supportive medical and residential services.
Strengthening
the health care safety net
To reduce health disparities, we partnered with community hospitals and health centers that serve people who are uninsured and underserved. We helped safety-net providers make quality improvements and improve access to care. Our physicians and employees also donated thousands of volunteer hours to provide specialty care to people in need. Read on for examples of our work.
Fresno mobile health unit drives family wellness
More than 1,000 students and family members in rural Fresno County received vaccinations, preventive screenings, and wellness exams in 2022 thanks to a Kaiser Permanente grant that funded a new mobile health vehicle.
New Santa Cruz health, dental clinics increase access to care
A new medical and dental clinic serving low-income residents opened in Santa Cruz with support from Kaiser Permanente.
Supporting
economic opportunities to change lives
We invested in programs that support youth and adults from underserved communities to pursue higher education, promising career paths, and well-paying jobs. We also supported programs to help diverse small business owners grow their companies and low-income people improve their financial health. Our investments reflect our commitment to reducing economic inequities and our understanding that economic opportunity is foundational to good health. Read on for examples of our work.
Grant helps build construction careers
We expanded access to well-paid jobs by supporting scholarships for low-income Sacramento students learning construction trades.
Read story and watch video
Helping Oakland students get to college and finish
As a founding sponsor of Oakland Promise, we know the program can transform lives. We provided funding to support its programs and scholarships, and our physicians and employees donated their time to mentor Oakland Promise scholars.
Opening young eyes to opportunities in health care
More than 200 students from 5 Northern California high schools got a closer look at the wide range of career opportunities available in health care at the annual Kaiser Permanente Northern California Youth Career Day.
Communities
we serve
- Go to the Central Valley Community
- Go to the Diablo Community
- Go to the East Bay Community
- Go to the Fresno Community
- Go to the Golden Gate Community
- Go to the Greater Sacramento Community
- Go to the Greater Southern Alameda Area Community
- Go to the Napa/Solano Community
- Go to the San Mateo Community
- Go to the Santa Rosa Community
- Go to the South Bay Community
By the numbers
Hospitals
Health Plan
$1.1B
2022 Northern California
Total Community Investment
$797M
Medi-Cal and other
government programs
$163M
Charitable health
coverage and care
$94M
Health professions
education
*As reported to the State of California in the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals 2022 Community Benefit Plan.
$41M
Grants and donations
$28M
Research
$18M
Other
$41M
In grants and donations
2,796
Employee and physician
volunteers put in
18,416
hours
80K
People received
Medical Financial Assistance
204
Doctoral and master’s level trainees
in our Mental Health Training Program
324
People trained at
our School of Allied
Health Sciences
1,805
Medical residents trained
in our Graduate Medical
Education programs
$1.8M
In employee and corporate
donations to nonprofits
through KP Gives