Since our inception, we have grown to encompass a diverse staff of approximately 60 epidemiologists, project managers, research assistants, and community health workers, and we have become leaders in the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative approaches to improve population health – with a primary focus on communities facing financial and social challenges.

As part of our health disparities research and work, we develop innovative community health interventions, deliver community health worker training and consultation, and provide a broad scope of evaluation services. We work in partnership with Chicago’s West and South Side communities to better understand the social factors underlying health disparities and to collaboratively develop, implement, evaluate, and scale innovative solutions to enable all individuals to thrive in health.

Currently funded initiatives focus on asthma, cancer navigation, screening and support, diabetes, and social determinants of health. Race represents a major through-line in all our work; we have been examining racism as an underlying root cause of social and health disparities since our establishment in 2000 and we continue to address complex topics like violence and mortality inequities. Our founder, Dr. Steve Whitman, once said, “I cannot see how we will make progress against racial disparities unless we reveal them and proclaim their destructiveness.”