Yvanna Marlin-Guanga

McLaren Health Plan, the 260,000-member insurance plan and part of statewide McLaren Health Care, has created the position of Health Equity Officer, a role that will advance access to care by addressing social, health and racial inequities in the communities it serves. Yvanna Marlin-Guanga will serve in this newly created leadership position.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion have long been part of our culture at McLaren Health Plan,” said Nancy Jenkins, McLaren Health Plan president and CEO. “Creating and formalizing the position of Health Equity Officer marks another step forward in our pledge to embed diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do.”

Marlin-Guanga is a health communication leader with more than 10 years of public health and health equity experience. She will be responsible for defining, implementing, and administering unified strategies to identify and eliminate health care disparities, achieve equitable access and support the diverse cultural, language, economic, education and health status needs of members and communities.

“I am thrilled to join the McLaren Health Plan team and also to be chosen for the SDOH Advisory Council,” Marlin-Guanga said. “I feel fortunate to lead the strategy for a mission-driven organization and champion efforts to remove barriers to care and help people thrive. I am looking forward to helping our members and staff as well as the communities we serve achieve their best health.”

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services recently announced the selection of Marlin-Guanga to its first ever Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Advisory Council. The council reflects the perspectives necessary for an inclusive, community-driven approach to SDOH and will guide the implementation of the SDOH Hub pilot projects and develop recommendations for future iterations of the group’s work.

Learn more about the McLaren Health Plan at mclarenhealthplan.org.

About McLaren Health Plan

McLaren Health Plan (MHP), a subsidiary of McLaren Integrated HMO Group, has been operating as a Michigan-based, licensed health maintenance organization (HMO) since 1998 and today delivers health care benefits to more than 260,000 members. Its statewide provider network has 97,000 providers and 161 hospitals. The HMO was started to serve Michigan’s Medicaid population and added Individual and Medicare products, along with a third-party administrator called Health Advantage, Inc., for self-funded employer groups. MHP is accredited by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and earned Multicultural Health Care accreditation in 2021 for its multicultural outreach and efforts to reduce health care access and delivery disparities within diverse communities. Learn more at mclarenhealthplan.org.

About McLaren Health Care

McLaren Health Care, headquartered in Grand Blanc, Michigan, is a $6.6 billion, fully integrated health care delivery system committed to quality, evidence-based patient care and cost efficiency. The McLaren system includes 13 hospitals in Michigan, ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, a 490-member employed primary and specialty care physician network, commercial and Medicaid HMOs covering more than 732,838 lives in Michigan and Indiana, home health, infusion and hospice providers, pharmacy services, a clinical laboratory network and a wholly owned medical malpractice insurance company. McLaren operates Michigan’s largest network of cancer centers and providers, anchored by the Karmanos Cancer Institute, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S. McLaren has 28,000 full-, part-time and contracted employees and more than 113,000 network providers throughout Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Learn more at mclaren.org.