The Fund Public Health campaign demands a public health system capable of meeting our public health needs and eliminating health inequities.

Having well-funded and robustly staffed health departments is critical to advancing health equity and public health. For too long, elected officials have underfunded and under-staffed our health departments, leaving them ill-prepared for pandemics, heat waves, and the day-to-day public health problems we face. This must change.

The Fund Public Health campaign works to advance the following priorities:

• $25 million more in the FY2025 City of Chicago Corporate Fund budget for the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH).
• $23 millions more in the FY2025 Cook County Corporate Fund budget for the Cook County Department of Public Health (CCDPH).
• No cuts to health department budgets.
• Both City and County officials must fix the HR problems and slow hiring processes that plague both CDPH and CCDPH
• New good public health jobs that are filled by people who are from the communities served and focused on public health improvement and advancing health equity

Our two letters to local officials have now had 80+ organizations signed on.

Read our letter to Chicago officials
Read our letter to Cook County officials

Health departments need increased funding to hire staff to advance health equity and both protect and promote public health. As examples, funds could be used to hire community health workers, sanitarians, communicable disease case investigators, lead risk assessors, community health assessment and planning, emergency preparedness, nurse home visiting, harm reduction to respond to opioids, and public health responses to violence.

No matter what issue you care about—maternal and child health, opioids, violence, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, lead poisoning, cancer, or any other—health departments work on most every public health issue. But they can only take them on appropriately if they have the funds and staff to do so.

The stakes are high. As one example of a health inequity that requires action, there is an 11-year life expectancy health inequity between Black Chicagoans and others. Health inequities, by definition, are unfair, unjust, and remediable. But the remedies require, in part, public health staff to work on the various interventions to support public health.

This issue in the media:

• Another wrinkle in Johnson’s budget dilemma: Public health (Crain’s Chicago Business)
• Health advocates want the Johnson administration to boost funding for public health in 2025 budget (The Tribe)
• Opinion: Chicago’s Public Health Department gets alarmingly little funding from the city. That needs to change now. (Crain’s Chicago Business)
• Chicago’s Public Health Department Losing $100 Million As COVID Grants Dry Up (Block Club Chicago)
• Underfunding In Chicago’s Health Department Hurts Black And Brown Communities Most, Advocates Say (Block Club Chicago)
• In Chicago’s budget crisis, where does public health fit? (Crain’s Daily Gist Podcast)
• 2025 Chicago budget needs to prioritize youth jobs, housing and public health, alders and residents say (The Triibe)
• Johnson commits millions to ambitious mental health plan despite budget constraints (Crain’s Chicago Business)
• Budget for Chicago’s Health Department Set to Drop 16% as Advocates Plead for More Money (WTTW)
• Aldermen call for more funding for Chicago health department even while trying to avoid property tax hike (Chicago Tribune)
• Bracing for a shrinking budget, Chicago’s health department scales back (WBEZ Chicago)

For more information, contact: Wesley Epplin, Policy Director, wepplin@hmprg.org