The Wichita Black Nurses Association (WBNA), founded in 1973, shares the overarching mission of its 50-year-old parent organization – the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) – which is to serve as the voice for Black nurses and diverse populations, ensuring equal access to professional development, promoting educational opportunities and improving health. The WBNA is primarily dedicated to implementing health care programs aimed at prevention, education and follow-up care, particularly with diseases that disproportionately impact the black community, such as hypertension, diabetes and testicular cancer. WBNA offers health education and screenings to community residents in collaboration with community-based partners, including faith-based organizations, civic, fraternal, hospitals, and schools of nursing. The group also works to address a nationwide nurse shortage, bring more diversity to nursing, reduce infant mortality and shore up the state’s medical reserve corps.
Peggy Jones-Fox, is president of the Wichita Black Nurses Association, an organization that works to stem infant mortality rates, among other health issues in the black community. Photo by Rose Conlon/Kansas News Service
Wichita, where WBNA is located, is the most populous city in the state and located in Sedgwick County, whose population, as of the 2020 census, is 523,824, making it the second-most populous county in Kansas. The Environmental Justice screening tool reveals that Sedgwick County contains the largest number of environmentally disadvantaged census tracts in Kansas – 45, or about 19 percent of the county. A major issue for the city of Wichita is an oil spill that happened between the 1970s and 1980s but was not discovered by the city of Wichita until 1994. Many residents only learned of the spill in 2023, which means that they may have been exposed for decades to trichloroethylene, a cancer-causing chemical that contaminated ground water and soil in their community. Federal lawsuits have been filed against Union Pacific, the company responsible for the spill. WBNA has been working with GraceMed Health to operate a mobile health unit to test residents for exposure to the chemical.