KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The lines on a map can tell a story about health and opportunities.
"One of the craziest things about living in Kansas City is that you can traverse two or three miles and experience a life discrepancy up to about 10 or 15 years," Mayor Quinton Lucas said earlier this week.
Similarly, traveling from one zip code to another also tells a story about vaccine rollout.
Following a data analysis by The Kansas City Star, the 41 Action News I-Team requested the top 10 zip codes where the most residents have been vaccinated.
The list, which was provided by the KCMO Health Department, shows a cluster in the Northland, as well as a group of zip codes that border State Line Road.
The health department emphasized the data is just a snapshot in time, and that numbers "could change significantly from one day to the next."
But as of February 18, the zip codes with the most vaccinated residents were:
- 64114
- 64151
- 64155
- 64113
- 64118
- 64157
- 64111
- 64119
- 64108
- 64131
Those zip codes have some of the longest life expectancies in the city, according to the health department's Community Health Assessment (CHA) dashboard.
The Star's analysis also found residents there are overwhelmingly white.
For example, health department data shows the populations of zip codes 64111 and 64114 are 79 percent white.
It's an important data point because black and Latinx residents have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
The disparity is especially extreme for Latinx Kansas Citians, who are dying at a rate more than 2.5 times that of white residents.
The city is trying to move the needle on those numbers by identifying and reaching out to people who don't have primary care providers or internet access, two things that have enabled many people to schedule their vaccine appointments.
A vaccine task force announced by the mayor is working with hospital systems specifically on outreach to diverse communities.
"We're the ones that have better data and analysis of where are our people of color, what languages do they speak, what's their primary language, how do you reach them? We're feeding some of that into the hospitals right now so when they vaccinate they can also be vaccinating those folks," Dr. Rex Archer of the KCMO Health Department said in an interview about the task force last week.
On Tuesday Mayor Lucas announced a mass vaccination clinic in partnership with Walmart and the YMCA. It will vaccinate more than 3,500 people who live in zip codes with the lowest life expectancies.
"This is just us trying to make sure we address that very key and fundamental issue, giving everyone a fair shot," Lucas said.
The 41 Action News I-Team also requested vaccine data by zip code from the state. This story will be updated when that information becomes available.
