City Tech Expands Health Atlas with Support from Sprague

City Tech Collaborative today announced renewed funding from the Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute to expand the use of and data available on the Chicago Health Atlas.

The goals of the Health Atlas are to serve as a resource for residents, public health practitioners, hospitals, and local organizations to review, explore and compare health-related data over time and across communities; understand the assets and needs of their communities; highlight area healthcare providers; and see progress toward implementing Healthy Chicago 2.0, the citywide plan to improve health equity. The Chicago Health Atlas is, by design, an evolving tool. Through new partnerships, improved data and continuous updates to the site, City Tech and partners seek to equip practitioners and the public to understand and improve the city's health. The Health Atlas was initially developed in 2013 through a partnership between the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the former Smart Chicago Collaborative. In 2017, a re-imagined site was launched with better visualizations and an enhanced user experience.

The support from the Sprague Institute allowed City Tech, in partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health and Clarity Partners, to add features and improve usability. The online tool now provides better descriptions, instructions and the ability to test specific parameters and view returned results. New features also include allowing the user to identify whether data for an indicator is available in citywide, community area or zip code formats by the dynamic button display on the indicator pages.

“The Institute created the Chicago Health Atlas to make information on community assets and health disparities more accessible. As the format evolved, it has incorporated new data sets and gained new utility,” said Jim Alexander, Executive Director of the Sprague Institute.

The Institute’s 2019 grant also has allowed City Tech to create the Partner Innovation Fund, which can be accessed on an as-needed basis throughout the year when a new data source has been identified but the data partner cannot provide the entire cost needed for City Tech to onboard their data to the Atlas. This approach of adding data from a community partner to data currently available on the Atlas from the Chicago Department of Public Health was piloted by the Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI).

In March, SUHI released additional findings from the Sinai Community Health Survey 2.0 (Sinai Survey) on the Atlas. Sinai Survey 2.0 is one of the largest community-driven, face-to-face health surveys ever conducted in Chicago and was developed by SUHI in collaboration with the Sinai Survey 2.0 Community Advisory Committee and The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Survey Research Laboratory. Sinai Survey 2.0 documents the health of selected Chicago community areas to better understand the social factors associated with health-related behaviors, service utilization, and outcomes; and to develop public health interventions to address health inequities.

As part of this endeavor, 40 new data points were released, providing insights into health and the factors that influence health across nine community areas, including Chicago Lawn, Gage Park, Hermosa, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, Norwood Park, South Lawndale, West Englewood, and West-West Town (West Town community area west of Western Avenue only).

This data covers a range of health topics, from clinical care to mental health, to food access to experiences with the justice system. In addition to previously released data, 16 new indicators were added.

Through enhanced features, City Tech and partners hope to provide public health practitioners and residents with practical insights. “These new features in combination with more data available from the community exemplifies our mission of bringing together organizations to improve urban life,” said Brenna Berman, executive director of City Tech, which transforms cities into testbeds for new ideas.

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About City Tech
City Tech transforms cities into testbeds for new ideas. We remake essential city services and infrastructure using advanced technology, and then expand these solutions to other cities. With our partners, we are diverting rainwater from overloaded sewer systems, easing subway congestion during large events, and launching a digital directory of public health services in Chicago. https://www.citytechcollaborative.org/

About Sprague
Founded in 1911, The Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute is one of the 18 oldest grantmaking foundations in the U.S. Its mandate is …the investigation of the causes of disease and the prevention and relief of human suffering. Initially, it hired a group of diverse researchers whose work focused on tuberculosis treatments; insulin and diabetes; cigarettes and lung cancer; the impact of environmental factors on health; and chemical treatments of schizophrenia. More recently, The Institute founded the Chicago Asthma Consortium; CLOCC, the childhood obesity prevention network; the Patient Connection Program at the Red Cross; The Oral Health Forum; MedAccess Chicago, a pharmaceutical distribution program; a variety of health initiatives in the Chicago Public Schools, including tele-behavioral health services; and a network of 30+ Chicago area hospitals working to address community health needs. For additional information: www.spragueinstitute.org

About Sinai Urban Health Institute
Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI) is the nationally-recognized community health research center of Sinai Health System. SUHI’s mission is to achieve health equity among communities through excellence and innovation in data-driven research, interventions, evaluation, and collaboration. SUHI works in partnership with communities to document disparities and improve health across Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. Additional details regarding Sinai Community Health Survey 2.0 can be found on the Chicago Health Atlas ( https://www.chicagohealthatlas.org/sinaisurvey ) and on the Sinai Survey 2.0 website ( www.sinaisurvey.org). Learn more about Sinai Health System at http://www.sinai.org