We are excited to share with you PHIMC’s new role as a lead infrastructure and coordinating support partner for Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH)’s groundbreaking initiative to advance health and racial equity. The citywide Healthy Chicago Equity Zones (HCEZ) initiative is a long-term strategy for community-led transformational change, particularly in Black and Latinx communities. Integral to the success of the HCEZ initiative are cross-sector efforts to advance anti-racist systems and policy change, remove obstacles to health, poverty, and discrimination, and improve the quality of life of people most affected by inequities.

The HCEZ initiative aligns with the goals of Healthy Chicago 2025, the City’s community health improvement plan that outlines strategies to close the racial life expectancy gap. The HCEZ initiative will work in alignment with Healthy Chicago 2025 for maximum collective community impact.

What is a Health Equity Zone? Health equity zones are community-based infrastructure systems designed for public health investments in neighborhoods to ensure every neighborhood has an equitable and just opportunity for health and well-being. Chicago’s Zones will carry out community-prioritized hyper-local strategies and interventions. 

In June 2021, CDPH created six Equity Zones, dividing Chicago’s 77 communities into regions and selecting regional lead organizations for each zone. Each HCEZ Region works with 12-16 Community Lead partner organizations that deploy hyper-local strategies to improve health and racial inequity. Rhode Island’s Health Equity Zones are the model for this work. We will learn from their work and adapt their approaches to develop a Chicago model that’s culturally appropriate and highly responsive to each of Chicago’s 77 communities.

Far South: Phalanx Family Services
Near South: Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation
North/Central: Swedish Covenant Hospital
Northwest: Northwest Center
Southwest: Southwest Organizing Project
West: Rush University Medical Center (on behalf of West Side United)

PHIMC serves as the infrastructure and coordinating support organization for the HCEZ initiative. Working in partnership with CDPH, PHIMC’s role is to develop and manage HCEZ supportive systems, shared infrastructure, technical assistance, and programming to strengthen the capacity of the six Regional Lead organizations. PHIMC’s support includes:

• Delivering technical assistance and training to build Regional Lead organizational capacity, strategy, and leadership
• Strengthening Regional Lead fiscal management and communications capacity, delivering technical assistance, and developing effective fiscal and communication systems across Zones
• Delivering cross-regional peer Learning Collaborative to Regional Leads
• Developing tools and processes for Regional Leads to achieve hyper-local transformational goals, including guidance on network mapping, partnership development, and designing and planning hyper-local interventions.

Since the launch of this initiative in June 2021, HCEZ Regions have led work to increase vaccine equity and have achieved impressive outcomes, especially reaching residents of Black and Brown communities. In June 2022, Regions will shift their focus to address broader health equity needs, beginning with conducting community assessments and developing action plans for priority interventions. Stay tuned!

Questions? Please contact Susanne Schnell.