Brent Never
Associate Dean, Associate Professor of Public Affairs
Director, Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership
Henry W. Bloch School of Management
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Population-level efforts are needed to increase levels of physical activity and healthy eating to reduce and manage chronic diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Interventions to increase public transit use may be one promising strategy, particularly for low-income communities or populations of color who are disproportionately burdened by health disparities and transportation barriers. This study, supported by an NIH grant, employs a natural experiment design to evaluate the impacts of a citywide zero-fare transit policy in Kansas City, Missouri, on ridership and health indicators.

In Aim 1, comparison to 9 similar cities without zero-fare transit is used to examine differential changes in ridership from 3 years before to 4 years after the adoption of zero-fare. In Aim 2, Kansas City residents are being recruited from a large safety net health system to compare health indicators between zero-fare riders and non-riders.

Longitudinal data on BMI, cardiometabolic markers, and economic barriers to health are collected from the electronic health record from 2017 to 2024. Cross-sectional data on healthy eating and device-measured physical activity are collected from a subsample of participants as part of the study procedures (N = 360). Numerous baseline characteristics are collected to account for differences between Kansas City and comparison city bus routes (Aim 1) and between zero-fare riders and non-riders within Kansas City (Aim 2). Evidence on how zero-fare transit shapes population health through mechanisms related to improved economic factors, transportation, physical activity, and healthy eating among low-income groups is expected.

Brent Never (Ph.D., Indiana University) is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management. His research considers the spatial and geographic implications of a decentralized human service system. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial regression methods, he has worked to identify communities underserved by human services. He has also worked to highlight clusters of financially distressed nonprofit organizations, those most likely to go out of business in the near future raising the question as to who is served by financially ‘sick’ human service providers.

Never has served as Visiting Professor in the School of Community Resources & Development at Arizona State University where he conducted research on the continued devolution of human services from government provision to private-sector provision through contracts, vouchers, and grants. He has published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, Voluntas, Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, and Nonprofit Policy Forum. In addition, Never regularly writes for the practitioner audience in the Nonprofit Quarterly.