Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and its partners, including GE Foundation, announced Tuesday they will expand the innovative Keep Your Heart Healthy program to four new neighborhoods in the coming year. Keep Your Heart Healthy was launched last year to identify Chicago residents most at risk for developing heart disease, to provide them with health screening services and to connect them to appropriate primary care. In its first full year, close to 11,000 residents were screened, many of whom would not have received care otherwise.

Keep Your Heart Healthy currently has programs in Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, South Chicago, Douglas and Lower West and will expand services to Austin, Garfield Park, Bronzeville and Roseland. The initiative has three main components to reduce risk for heart disease: identify individuals most at risk for developing heart disease; connect individuals to medical care through referrals; and educate and support individuals to make healthy choices including changes in diet, exercise and other areas to reduce their risk for heart disease. As part of the program, medical students collaborate with community-based organizations to conduct weekly health screenings, which builds community-level capacity by improving the skills of community health workers.

During 2014, Keep Your Heart Healthy screened and educated 10,692 Chicagoans for heart disease. Of those, 46 percent – or 4,918 individuals – were identified as at risk for developing heart disease and 23 percent, or 1,131 of those individuals, did not have a medical home. In 2014, CDPH launched the full Keep Your Heart Healthy program in partnership with the GE Foundation, based upon a $2.2 million grant.