Eliminating disparities in rates of asthma, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity and smoking prevention has been within the sights of the Sinai Urban Health Institute, or SUHI, part of Chicago's Sinai Health System, since its creation in March 2000.
SUHI has received 74 grants totaling $16 million to attack these problems, beginning with an intensive door-to-door survey in six community areas.
Resulting programs have included CO-OP Humboldt Park—short for Community Organizing for Obesity Prevention—a healthy lifestyles initiative in that heavily Puerto Rican community; and the Helping Her Live breast cancer awareness program, targeted toward African-American communities with particularly high disparities.
“The issues were rather diverse, but they had the commonality of an agency dealing with the community,” says CARES category judge William Roche.
