The Chicago Area Health Education Center is part of the National AHEC Organization (NAO) developed by Congress in 1971 to recruit, train, and retain a health professions workforce committed to under-served populations. Locally, within the Illinois AHEC Network, the Chicago AHEC program provides a link between needed health resources and local communities.

The goal of Chicago AHEC is to meet primary care and public health workforce needs in the Chicago area. Our activities include:

Are you interested in sharing your professional experience by being  a member of our Speakers Bureau? We encourage health professionals of all levels to sign up. Click here to register.

After registering to be a member of our Speakers Bureau, we will send you an acknowledgement e-mail containing a link to a survey that asks questions to help us better match you with speaking opportunities.

Our Speakers Bureau is available to speak to and mentor students in community-based settings about health disparities, health topics, health promotion, and service learning. Chicago AHEC also offers job shadowing experiences in community-based settings. Our community-based education focuses on promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, public health principles, and policy development around key health workforce challenges in collaboration with Heath & Medicines’ other program areas. Recent activates include a pilot program for 42 “opportunity youth” at three community sites, providing them with essential skills, health workforce exposure programming, job shadowing, HIPAA orientation, certification opportunities, as well as know your rights and records relief information.