Northwestern Medicine

Addressing Diabetes at the Neighborhood Level

As part of its effort to improve community health, Northwestern Medicine is partnering with community organizations to respond to the high rate of diabetes in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. The work began six years ago through the Healthy Community Initiative (HCI), which maintains and develops community-based prevention strategies to:

• Reduce risk factors and prevent or delay chronic disease;
• Promote wellness and improve management of chronic conditions; and
• Monitor, evaluate and make recommendations on established processes to ensure shared community goals are achieved.

The HCI consists of a variety of community organizations—including Erie Family Health Center, Near North Health Services Corporation, Kelly Hall YMCA and Salvation Army—that joined together to expand the Diabetes Collaborative framework and implement a comprehensive, sustainable and replicable model of care that will lead to measurable improvements in health outcomes.

Northwestern Medicine staff, as well as system operating funds and grant funding, help fuel the initiative. In fiscal year 2017, the HCI held:

• 750 physical fitness classes;
• 53 nutrition education programs;
• 16 farmers markets;
• 3 mental health workshops; and
• 2 health and resource fairs/screenings events.

With these successes, the initiative is shifting its focus to youth programming, violence prevention and mental health programming in fiscal year 2018.