Data to Improve Community Conditions Shaped by Structural Racism -- Chicago Community Trust

The Foundation's Data for Healthy Communities initiative was designed to create the conditions in communities that allow all residents to reach their best possible health and well-being by: (1) strengthening the evidence base for how conditions of place impact health; (2) extending the use of data and evidence throughout the decision-making process, including policy; (3) using data collection and analysis to bring communities closer together by building the capacity of places to use data, develop leaders, and genuinely engage their community; and (4) developing norms, behaviors, and formal rules of interaction related to how data are communicated and used to address problems and initiate change in underserved communities.This grant supports research on current processes regarding acquisition and use of vacant land to improve public health outcomes in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities on Chicago's South and West Sides, where most of the city's vacant land is located and where decades of disinvestment have led to large tracts of vacant, underutilized land. The research will help advocate an integrated, cross-agency, community-driven strategy to address this issue to ensure that vacant land near transit stations leverages public transportation assets. The deliverables will include a landing page on the Elevated Chicago website describing the project; two three- to five-minute videos, also to include contextual data to document community conversations and community conditions; and a printable, user-friendly, one-page fact sheet summarizing project findings, to be distributed to key audiences throughout Chicago.