Elaine Johannes

Elaine Johannes is the Kansas Health Foundation Distinguished Professor in Community Health for Kansas State University and is a state Extension Specialist in the School of Human Sciences, College of Health and Human Sciences. She has extensive experience in working with communities to address chronic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes), health disparities, rural health, mental wellness and support community health worker development. Johannes' Extension programming builds the capacity for resilience and well-being through community-level approaches. In 2024, she led the implementation of a community health worker (CHW) staffing model for Extension units in rural, frontier locales. That model continues through Kansas' Rural Health Transformation (RHT) program.