Health Equity Team
Northwest Center’s Health Equity team was formed in June 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that time we partnered with city, state, and foundation-supported initiatives to provide direct cash assistance, meals, supplies, and vaccinations to our community members in need. As we move forward, the Health Equity Team and our Community Health Worker’s objectives will continue to evolve as they work to identify and respond our community’s most urgent needs.
Health & Wellness Workshops
We provide health and wellness workshops to youth, parents, and older adults. We facilitate nutritional Charlas, a series of workshops that provide nutrition education, educational grocery tours and shopping tips, an opportunity for physical fitness, and connections to healthcare professionals and resources.
Follow us on our social and check back to our events page for upcoming health workshops.
DIABETES PREVENTION WORK
Northwest Center has partnered with Lurie Children’s Hospital to extend its diabetes prevention program to more local restaurants within the Belmont Cragin community, as highlighted in the recent WBEZ Chicago article, "New Program from Lurie Brings a Neighborhood Restaurant Focus to Diabetes Prevention.”
Currently, seven restaurants have adapted menu items to be more diabetes-friendly. Their goal is to recruit three additional establishments by May 2025 to join this initiative and continue promoting healthier, culturally relevant dining options.
Trauma-Informed Learning Cohorts
The Community Resilience Initiative (CRI) focuses on creating a community conversation about Adverse Childhood experiences (ACEs) and Resilience and aims to provide community members with science-based insights to promote and cultivate resilience. CRI embeds these principles into action through multiple organizations, like Northwest Center.
Healthy Chicago Equity Zones
What is HCEZ (Healthy Chicago Equity Zones)?
After declaring racism a public health emergency in June 2021, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Public Health allocated $9.6 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop targeted strategies to improve community wellness and close the racial life expectancy gap.
The City of Chicago is divided into six geographic zones, which have awarded Regional Leads who will work collaboratively alongside community leaders to identify and confront the social and environmental issues contributing to health and racial inequity.
We are honored to share that Northwest Center has been awarded the Regional Lead for the Northwest Zone, which encompasses 15 of Chicago's 77 community areas. The Northwest Region is the most diverse region in the City.
The first phase of our work with HCEZ was the focus group stage, where the community leads North River Commission, Metropolitan Family Services, Palenque LSNA, and Northwest Center communicated health equity concepts to their communities. Feedback was collected during NWC community events, including Playstreets, housing events, and other community gatherings, on topics such as the critical health equity challenges residents face, identifying available resources, and assessing gaps in needed programs and services. Focus groups with non-profit leaders, block club members, school principals, houses of worship, community residents, youth, older adults, and others helped these leads contextualize the data. They dispelled misconceptions about health equity in the Northwest Region, and when disaggregated, it shows that communities like Belmont Cragin are misrepresented. Belmont Cragin is a community with several health inequities in areas such as public safety and housing.
Reports & Studies
As part of our work to advance health equity in northwest Chicago, we continue to work with Lurie Children’s Hospital and Belmont Cragin community members to research and build strong families and healthy communities.
Click on a report to read about the outcome.
Get Your Vaccine!
The Covid-19 vaccine is now widely available.
Visit the City of Chicago’s vaccine finder to locate a site near you.