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Impact Areas
The Alliance for Health Equity aims to improve health equity, community wellness and quality of life across all neighborhoods of Chicago and Suburban Cook County.
Our collaboration on the area Community Health Needs Assessment strengthens our ability to identify health needs and convene specialized workgroups to address disparities.
The Alliance for Health Equity is currently convening workgroups on the following areas: food access and food security, housing, and mental health.
Are you interested in signing up for a workgroup? Reach out to join us today!
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The Alliance for Health Equity has a Food Action Agenda (link) that guides our collective work in five strategy areas: Food is Medicine, screening and referral, culturally tailored food and nutrition, policy, and local food procurement and economic development. The Food is Medicine subcommittee meets quarterly and works to advance policy and programmatic work to support partnerships across Cook County and Illinois. One key Food is Medicine initiative has been work on the 1115 waiver food and nutrition benefits (link). For Local Food Procurement, the Alliance has partnered on Good Food in Healthcare (link) and identifying strategies for local food procurement in the healthcare sector in Cook County.
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Info on housing landscape and strategies
Info on CHHRGE and System Change Collaborative
Info on Medical Respite
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Brief description of process to determine priorities and strategies
Opportunity to join the workgroup
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Item description
Assessment
The Alliance for Health Equity is a collective impact project that unites partners across fields such as clinical care, community-based healthcare, public health, social and human services, community development, academia, and policy. AHE was formed in 2015 by the Illinois Public Health Institute and hospitals in Chicago and Suburban Cook County, in close partnership with the Chicago Department of Health and Cook County Department of Public Health, to complete a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) for the City of Chicago and Suburban Cook County.
The CHNA is a public health tool that gives organizations information about a community’s current health status, needs, and resources. Information gained from CHNA’s allow our partners, including hospitals, health departments, health service providers, community-based organizations, universities, and government agencies to develop shared plans for improving community health and reducing health inequities across the city and county.
The landmark Affordable Care Act requires non-profit hospitals to complete comprehensive community health needs assessments every three years and to develop plans for improving community health based on assessment findings. Membership in the Alliance for Health Equity allows hospital to streamline their assessment processes, more effectively use community benefit resources, align with local health department plans, meaningfully engage communities, build stronger networks with community-based providers, and have a greater impact on community health.
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The Alliance for Health Equity completes a countywide assessment every three years. Previous assessments were completed in 2016, 2019, and 2022. The next countywide assessment will be completed in December 2024 and will be publicly available in 2025.
Illinois Public Health Institute (IPHI) serves as the background organization for the Alliance and coordinates the assessment process. IPHI provides hospitals with collated datasets and reports that describe the health status of Chicagoland communities with an emphasis on health and racial equity as well as community assets. In addition, IPHI works collaboratively with Alliance partners to engage communities in the assessment and planning processes through multiple methods such as focus groups, surveys, and participation in workgroups.
IPHI provides technical assistance to hospital partners to create companion chapters to the countywide assessment report that are focused on findings in each of the hospital’s primary service areas. Following the completion of assessment reports, IPHI provides technical assistance to partners in the development of implementation plans and facilitates workgroups around core priority health issues.
[LINK TO PAGE WITH PREVIOUS REPORTS]
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The Alliance for Equity assessment structure is based on the National Association of City and County Health Officials Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP 2.0) framework. MAPP 2.0 is a community-driven multi-sector process that focuses on collaborative policy, environmental, and system change for achieving health equity.
In addition to MAPP 2.0, the assessment process integrates tools from the American Hospital Association’s Community Health Assessment Toolkit.
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The Alliance has developed a comprehensive list of community health priorities based on assessment findings including population health data and community input, new and existing resources, partner expertise, policy opportunities, alignment with health department priorities, and alignment with priorities of other local health improvement processes or programs.
[INSERT SCREEN READABLE UPDATED GRAPHIC OF ALLIANCE PRIORITIES]
Alliance partners are working on a mix of hospital service area, regional, county-wide, and state-wide implementation strategies. Currently, there are cross-sector implementation workgroups working together on strategies in several priority areas including Social Determinants of Health, Food Access and Food Security, Housing, and Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders.
[LINK TO PAGES RELATED TO THE PRIORITY AREAS]
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Community input is the most important component of community health assessment. Including communities in the assessment and implementation processes allows Alliance partners to understand the root causes of illness and health inequities, assess existing resources, identify barriers to community health improvement, and build implementation plans that not only better address community health needs but are also more likely to succeed.
[ADD QUOTES REGARDING FOOD, HOUSING, SOCIAL DETERMINANTS, AND MENTAL HEALTH FROM PREVIOUS CHNA]
Learn more about the ways that communities can participate in the Alliance for Health Equity
[LINK TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PAGE]
Policy & Advocacy
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Community Engagement
The Alliance for Health Equity believes that community engagement is a critical component of any effort to improve health equity. Community engagement helps Alliance partners identify the most pressing needs within communities, direct resources where they are most needed, evaluate existing programs, and support community-led and grassroots initiatives.
The Alliance engages communities in multiple ways and is continually seeking opportunities to improve community involvement and leadership within the collaborative process.
Community engagement examples
Community input collection during assessments through focus groups and surveys [LINK TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SECTION OF ASSESSMENT PAGE]
Co-leading and participation in implementation workgroups
Providing direct feedback on program plans through key stakeholder interviews and focus groups
Engagement of local community advisory councils and advisory boards in decision-making processes
