Building a More Resilient, Inclusive Public Health Infrastructure: Insights From Chicago's Community‐Based COVID‐19 Corps

TL;DR

The paper discusses how Chicago's community-based contact tracing program helped build a more inclusive public health system during the pandemic.

Contribution

The paper introduces a collaborative model for public health workforce development centered on community-based organizations and marginalized individuals.

Findings

Partnering with community-based organizations improved trust and outreach in high-hardship areas.

Training unemployed community members as contact tracers empowered local populations and strengthened public health infrastructure.

The initiative demonstrated the value of inclusive, collaborative approaches in public health emergencies.

Abstract

Emergency events such as natural disasters, pandemics, and other health disasters have a predictably disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations and the COVID‐19 pandemic was not an exception. To respond to potentially catastrophic consequences of COVID‐19 and to build an infrastructure for a more inclusive recovery, in June 2020, the Chicago Department of Public Health partnered with a state university school of public health, a community college that prepares students for healthcare occupations, a research institute at a private university, a public health institute affiliated with a hospital system, and a workforce development organisation. The team formed the Chicago COVID‐19 Contact Tracing Corps (ChiTracing). Centring the expertise of grassroots community‐based organisations (CBOs), ChiTracing partnered with 31 CBOs operating in the highest hardship community areas. These CBOs hired and trained over 500 community members, who had a history of unemployment, as neighbourhood‐level public health ambassadors and contact tracers, known as the ChiTracing Corps members. Informed by a shared theory of change, we brought three strategies to this work: investing in a new public health infrastructure by centring trusted CBOs and people with lived experience of systems of oppression as part of the public health system, increasing awareness and knowledge of public health and available resources for the most vulnerable, and fostering relationships and power building among diverse collaborators. In this paper, we highlight lessons learnt and share insights on how future efforts can bring collaborative, inclusive approaches to public health workforce development.

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