Urban Community Health

Community leaders, health professionals, schools and families are challenged by the need to address health problems facing our communities. The Urban Community Health Team provides a foundation for concerted, collaborative efforts to bring about improvements in the health and safety of the Cook County residents. The team works to develop health education materials, provide program evaluation and health services research, and assist in community planning efforts to determine health care needs of the underserved.

Special emphasis includes:

• children's immunization and health
• preventing childhood obesity and related health conditions
• improving prenatal care and nutrition
• improving the quality of HIV/AIDS care
• offering health screenings to underserved populations in their communities
• educational programming on topics including hypertension, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, asthma, tobacco and alcohol abuse, vision problems, dental health, sickle cell anemia, and sexually transmitted diseases

The following workshop series will be made available to targeted neighborhoods and audiences:

• breast cancer
• cervical cancer
• prostate cancer
• obesity
• diabetes
• HIV/AIDS and STD
• heart disease

Increased promotion of participation and equal access in research based nutrition education workshop series is critical for inner city residents. Nutrition education will be incorporated into the overall comprehensive community health program with emphasis in the following:

• improvement in consumption of fruits and vegetables along with a greater variety of foods
• improvement in nutritional practices
• increased knowledge for the essentials of human nutrition
• skills in producing food for community and family

A health web site will be created to provide access to hundreds of health, nutrition, and safety topics for consumers, health professionals, teachers, and others working with the public.