We partnered with West Side United (WSU) to improve the life expectancy gap between Chicago’s West side and Loop residents.
ABOUT WEST SIDE UNITED
West Side United is a collaborative between six Chicago hospitals (Rush, Lurie Children’s Hospital, AMITA Health, Cook County Health, UI Health, and Sinai) that joined forces in 2017 with the mission of building community health and economic wellness on Chicago’s West Side. It aims to promote healthy, strong, and vibrant neighborhoods. Other partners in different industries like healthcare, education, faith, business, and government joined in the collaborative to coordinate programs and investments for shared outcomes. The goal of WSU is to reduce the life expectancy gap between Chicago Loop and West Side neighborhoods by 50% by 2030.
WSU hosted an Applied Data Fellow to push the organization's goals along by creating new programs and enhancing programs already set in place. The Fellow's three major contributions helped to increase healthy food access and nutrition education to10,000 residents, spearhead a 7.5% increase in disbursal of grants to small businesses, and coordinate meetings of WSU's Metrics Group to ensure good data management practices by all participating institutions.
PROJECT IMPACT
Healthy Food Strategy Initiatives
This was a new initiative for WSU, with four different projects falling underneath it. The Fellow continually supported and managed the development of the program, working with external and internal stakeholders of five groups and 30 people. The Fellow conducted research to inform WSU on how to build its healthy food initiatives. Utilizing skills in behavioral economics theory, the Fellow designed and focused WSU's healthy food strategy initiatives to help individuals live healthier lives. The Fruits and Veggies Voucher program, which the Fellow helped build from the ground up, improved healthy food access and education to more than 1,000 West Side residents.
Small Business Grants
The Fellow helped WSU craft their 2019 Request for Proposal, analyzing the 2018 proposal to build off. The Fellow created a target plan to work with all chambers of commerce and business networks on the West Side. Through the work of the Fellow, WSU learned about the specific needs of small businesses in each neighborhood. The Small Business Grants offered $725,000 for 35 grantees, a 7.5% increase in grant money.
Metrics Group
WSU aims to develop a framework to connect or correlate the impact of its initiatives to its goal of reducing the life expectancy gap. The Fellow became a part of the team that researched how cancer incidents and outcomes correlated to education, neighborhood and physical environment, economic vitality, and healthcare. The findings informed the design of on-the-ground initiatives that would affect these measures. The Fellow helped WSU to logically trace the outcomes of all their initiatives using data.
Every part of the Fellow's role related directly to WSU's goal of improving the life expectancy gap of Chicago's West Side residents. Utilizing data and behavioral theory, the Fellow managed and developed initiatives that tangibly helped West Side residents by increasing access, education, and grant money to help WSU build lively and healthy neighborhoods.