Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita accepted a Gold Medal award from the CityHealth initiative for implementing policies that improve the health, well-being and economic opportunity of residents. For the second year in a row, Chicago is one of just five cities nationally to receive a gold medal among the 40 cities ranked in CityHealth’s updated city ratings. Chicago will be awarded a gold medal at the U.S. Conference of Mayors 86th Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Chicago received an overall gold medal for improving people’s health and quality of life, as well as individual gold medals for successful policies in affordable housing, alcohol sales control, complete streets, smoke-free indoor air and raising the age of tobacco sales to 21. The city also received silver medals in earned sick leave, healthy food procurement and high-quality universal pre-kindergarten. Some of the policies that earned medals include:
Affordable Housing
Since 2014, the city has supported more than 40,000 affordable housing units with $1.3 billion in coordinated public and private investments through programs like the Affordable Requirements Ordinance, the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund, the Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund, and numerous programs that build and preserve homes for families earning up to 60 percent of area median income.
Complete Streets
The city launched its Vision Zero Chicago Action Plan in 2017. The data-driven, multi-agency approach looks at traffic safety as a public health challenge with the goal of improving safety for everyone using Chicago’s robust transportation system, whether they are walking, biking, driving or on transit.
CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, provides leaders with a package of evidence-based policy solutions that will help millions of people live longer, better lives in vibrant, prosperous communities. CityHealth will regularly evaluate cities on the number and strength of their policies. http://www.cityhealth.org/
