Board of Health

Meeting begins at 9am. Meetings of previous meetings approved.

Dr. Arwady begins to explain the new initiatives launched by the city for the current campaign against HIV and substance abuse. Unfortunately, substance abuse in the city on the rise.

City is now using more funds to make sure people at risk for HIV have resources to prevent infection.

Fentanyl is being found contaminating more and more drugs which has lead to a rise in overdose. Federal funds can now be used to purchase fentanyl testing strips that tests for fentanyl in drugs. The city has been purchasing them and distributing them.

A west side substance abuse outreach group has been formed in order to be able to connect people with resources much faster.

@ChiPublicHealth is working to make sure there is better data available about public health.

CDPH will launch vending machines that will contain general hygiene products that can aid people experiencing substance abuse or homelessness. The overdose reversing drug will be now available at 20 public libraries that is available to patrons and anybody experiencing overdose.

The Lead prevention campaign is receiving additional federal and city funding that will allow for more homes to be repainted.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of first vaccinating someone with the COVID vaccine. Dr. Arwady is very proud of all the work the health staff has done and all the open discussions that were had about COVID.

At home vaccines have had a significant uptake recently. There have been requests for up to 1400 homes per week for at home vaccines, most of which have now come from demographics that had lower vaccine rates.

Dr. Arwady is concerned about the new Covid variant Omicron. Data from other countries have shown some initial vaccine escape, however it seems like the booster has made a significant difference in protecting populations.

Things on the political side have gotten a lot harder because many are tired of hearing about COVID. Dr. Arwady says that there has been an increase in personal attacks including sending threatening things to her home about the increase in vaccine mandates.

Dr. Arwady says that the city has seen a delta variant surge and there are concerns about a possible Omicron surge in the future.

Dr. Arwady passes the presentation onto Meghan to review the application of Southeast side recycling.

Southeast recycling is a recycling center that purchased the grounds that previously hosted General Iron. CDPH is reviewing closely how the center would impact the health of southeast residents and the goals of Healthy Chicago 2025.

Dr. Arwady also explains that there has been several lawsuits regarding the Southeast side recycling center and there is expected to be more, hence limiting what is able to say about the topic while it is still in litigation.

There are concerns raised by Janet Lin about the staffing within public health/healthcare and schools as the threat of Omicron increases. Dr. Arwady also explains that CDPH is very concerned about staffing in the future.

The presentation is passed onto Dr. Rothschild about General Iron site. The proposed recycling center would be one of the biggest nations. Even if this site works as expected, there is going to be an increase in particulates in area near schools/parks in a Latinx community

Overall, Dr. Rothschild hopes that this is an alternative that includes blocking this site and wants to bring to the attention of the board the values of the department which include environmental justice.

The presentation passes over to Marlita who has a presentation addresses the rising violence in the city and concerns by the residents.

One important innovation for violence prevention in Chicago is the Violence reduction dashboard. https://t.co/jSN1zaNaUb

Another new initiative is the Community Safety Coordinating Center that will prioritize: https://t.co/bEIBXUAu9V

Primary violence prevention programs by CDPH currently include Bullying and Suicide Prevention and Restorative Practices, Prevention Education and Mental Health Services, Chicago Torture Justice Center, and People Who Cause Harm.

There is also emerging programs that address gender violence reduction. https://t.co/VNgfBtOtNn

There are concerns about how the dashboard will represent different types of violence. Marlita explains that the has been a lot of feedback which has helped improve the dashboard over time. Marlita also explains that there are initiatives to address awareness about the dashboard

There is discussion about how CDPH is able to now work in violence prevention because of an increase for funding for it.

Meeting now passes onto the public comment section.

There is a public commentor that is a Professor of Epidemiology at UIC. Their comment is about blocking General Iron. They go on to explain the dangerous chemicals and possible public health risks there are with the site.

The Professor overall believes that the board should work to block this site in spirit of their values for environmental justice.

There is another public comment. The meeting ends at 10:35am.