On January 20th, a standing-room-only crowd filled the Humboldt Park Diabetes Empowerment Center to learn more about this groundbreaking work. Edited by the Sinai Urban Health Institute’s Steven Whitman; Ami M. Shah; and Maureen Benjamins, Urban Health examines the health disparities that challenge underserved neighborhoods throughout Chicago. It describes how a landmark health survey in Chicago generated dramatic data that are allowing investigators to move from data to action and from observation to intervention. It provides a new model for combating health disparities that includes the collection of local health information, the genuine engagement of community members and organizations, and the implementation of interventions for sustainable change.
Urban Health includes case studies on smoking cessation, childhood obesity, diabetes, and pediatric asthma. Three chapters are devoted to Humboldt Park and its efforts to combat asthma, obesity and diabetes. Juana Ballesteros, Executive Director of the Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness, asserted that the book’s key distinction is going beyond theory and data into practice and action.
Several Humboldt Park luminaries authored chapters of the book, including Ballesteros herself; Jaime Delgado, Project Director of the Block By Block – Humboldt Park Community Campaign Against Diabetes; José Lopez, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center; and José Luis Rodríguez,
Program Director of CO-OP Humboldt Park.
Speakers included the book’s three editors in addition to Sinai Health System CEO Alan Channing, Norwegian American Hospital CEO José Sanchez, and Muévete Program Coordinator Leony Calderón.
Urban Health is an invaluable resource for researchers, community groups, students and professionals.
To purchase a copy please contact Maria Natal at maria.natal@sinai.org or 773-257-5960. A portion of the sales of the book go to Sinai Health Systems.
Christy Prahl and Juana Ballestero
