This resource provides practical, actionable strategies for health and human service organizations to strengthen sustainability during funding uncertainty. It highlights approaches for leveraging community assets, building partnerships, diversifying funding sources, and maximizing existing...
This policy brief examines regional inequities in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), community conditions, and access to resources across Illinois, with particular attention to immigrant communities. It highlights how place-based inequities shape health and well-being and offers policy...
This toolkit provides a compilation of resources to help health professionals understand how trauma and the Social Determinants of Health intersect to shape the health and well-being of youth. It offers various tools for delivering trauma-informed, healing-centered approaches and addressing the...
Health and social service providers can improve health outcomes by linking patients to community resources. Resource referrals help address social needs and boost well-being but can be confusing, time-consuming, and intimidating due to barriers like bureaucracy, language, waitlists, and...
This resource guide was created to help Illinois families find support for everyday needs, such as food, housing, health care, and more. Families, providers, and advocates may use the guide to find statewide resources and tips on how to get started. Available in English and Spanish. ACEs-Resource...
This report presents findings from a scan of resource databases across Illinois and interviews with community members and service providers. It examines how youth and families navigate health and social services and highlights strengths, gaps, and opportunities to improve access to resources and...
This report outlines an environmental scan of the doula and CPM workforces in Illinois. Doulas are trained professionals who provide continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to their clients before, during, and shortly after childbirth. CPMs are knowledgeable, skilled...
This report underscores the necessity of establishing a more robust and sustainable community birth infrastructure in Illinois. Data was obtained from written surveys, individual interviews, and focus groups provided by community midwives, doulas, physicians, healthcare leaders, and birth center...
The Good Jobs Challenge was a COVID-19 relief-funded, community-driven, employer-led workforce development federal grant housed at the Economic Development Administration at the national level and administered by the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership at the regional level. When Health &...
Health & Medicine Policy Director Wesley Epplin recently delivered testimony to the Cook County Board of Commissioners during the FY2026 budget hearings. The testimony called for increased investment in public health and stronger protections for immigrant communities across Cook County. Read...
The Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI) conducts an annual evaluation of our newly expanded Suburban Cook County Community Health Worker (CHW) Initiative. This report, Piecing the Mosaic: Strengthening Community Health Through Partnership, represents the findings of this phased formative and...
On July 22nd, Health & Medicine’s Senior Policy Analyst, Mayra Diaz, delivered remarks to Chicago’s City Council at a hearing for the Committee on Health and Human Relations. The hearing focused on a resolution, introduced by Alderman Anthony Quezada and Alderwoman Rossana...