Module 5 – VoiceThread – Healthy Community Assessment and Indicators Paper
Healthy Community Assessment and Indicators
This presentation evaluates the city of Chicago using healthy community metrics and concepts. The presentation seeks to assess Chicago’s alignment with accepted criteria for a healthy community by examining several facets of the built, social, and natural ecosystems. The review uses three different indicators from the Healthy Communities Assessment Tool (HCAT) and one indicator based on the vision established in Module 4 (Healthy Communities Assessment Tool (HCAT) | Healthy Communities Assessment Tool, 2025). The analysis compares the results with the categories listed in the “Building Healthy Communities Together” model, specifically, the constructed, natural, and social environments. This thorough evaluation examines whether Chicago fosters general well-being, resource accessibility, and equal health chances for its various communities.
Community Overview: Chicago
Chicago ranks as the third-largest city in the United States, distinguished by its dynamic culture, renowned architecture, and social diversity. It accommodates more than 2.6 million people over 77 legally designated community areas (Facts & Statistics, 2023). Notwithstanding its urban sophistication, the city contends with considerable health inequities, particularly in historically marginalized communities. Regions such as Englewood on the South Side see elevated crime rates, restricted healthcare access, and food deserts, but neighborhoods like Edgewater demonstrate enhanced stability and superior living circumstances. The heterogeneous population of Chicago offers a distinctive chance to evaluate inequalities and strengths via health indicators and environmental frameworks. An analysis of neighborhood disparities can yield a comprehensive understanding of community health in Chicago.
HCAT Indicator: Access to Healthy Food
Access to healthy food is one of the HCAT indicators utilized for this assessment. The existence of food deserts in areas like Englewood underscores disparities in access to nutritious food sources. A Chicago Health Atlas report in 2021 indicates that approximately 500,000 persons reside in regions with insufficient grocery shops and a surplus of fast-food establishments (Low Food Access | Chicago Health Atlas, 2025). In contrast, neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park provide a plethora of farmers’ markets, food establishments, and community-supported agriculture initiatives. The gap signifies that access to nutritious food is unevenly allocated around the city. This indicator is essential for assessing long-term health consequences, especially regarding obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease prevalence, which are markedly elevated in low-access regions.
HCAT Indicator: Air and Water Quality
The air and water quality in Chicago fluctuates considerably based on geographic location and proximity to industrial activities. The industrial corridors in the Southwest and Southeast significantly exacerbate air pollution in areas like Little Village and Calumet. These communities have elevated incidences of asthma, respiratory ailments, and environmental strain. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued multiple citations to polluting enterprises in these regions. Although Lake Michigan offers a potable water supply for the majority of the population, older neighborhoods are compromised by antiquated lead plumbing, jeopardizing water safety (Soll, 2023). These environmental stressors affect public health, revealing that although some residents benefit from clean air and water, others face persistent environmental risks.
HCAT Indicator: Housing and Transportation
The Housing and Transportation indicator, another crucial component of HCAT, highlights significant disparities in quality of life across Chicago. Affordable housing is becoming increasingly limited, with nearly 30% of Chicago residents allocating more than half of their income to rent (Soll, 2023). In underserved regions, housing quality frequently remains inadequate, resulting in problems such as mold, pest infestations, and structural deterioration. Simultaneously, Chicago’s public transit network, especially the CTA, is comprehensive yet sometimes lacks reliability in economically disadvantaged areas. Safety issues and extended commute durations adversely affect access to vital services, including healthcare and jobs. Affluent areas have contemporary housing and effective transport, while others encounter daily obstacles that impede general well-being.
Vision Indicator: Community Garden
The Community Garden indicator, as outlined in Module 4, provides a localized strategy for enhancing access to nutritious food and fostering community solidarity. There are more than 800 community gardens in Chicago. Most of them are run by neighborhood volunteers and nonprofits (Gregis et al., 2021). These spaces provide not only nutrition but also foster community connections, give educational opportunities, and establish green zones in urban environments. Nevertheless, the majority of gardens are situated in North Side neighborhoods, resulting in restricted access for numerous South and West Side populations. This gap underscores the necessity for equitable growth of community gardening efforts to mitigate food insecurity and social isolation in underprivileged regions. Community gardens signify a concrete advancement in the promotion of holistic health.
Built, Natural, and Social Environment Comparison
This assessment, utilizing the Building Healthy Communities Together paradigm, identifies strengths and weaknesses within the three domains. Chicago’s built environment comprises substantial infrastructure, healthcare facilities, and educational institutions; yet, inequities in housing quality and transportation diminish its efficacy in specific regions. The natural environment includes Lake Michigan and urban green spaces; yet, several citizens continue to confront pollution and insufficient environmental safeguards (Cvetnic, 2023). The social environment is profoundly influenced by racial segregation and economic disparity. Elevated levels of communal violence and diminished faith in public institutions endure in marginalized areas. These characteristics collectively indicate that while many sections of Chicago are prospering, others fail to satisfy fundamental health and safety standards.
Overall Community Health Appraisal
Upon assessing Chicago with the chosen metrics and community models, a multifaceted scenario unfolds. Certain communities exemplify the values of health fairness, sustainability, and community empowerment. Others are impeded by structural obstacles, such as environmental injustice, food insecurity, and inadequate housing. The Healthy Chicago 2025 plan seeks to address these disparities through focused policy and community collaborations (Cvetnic, 2023). Nevertheless, sustained investment in underprivileged regions and the formulation of inclusive policies are crucial for substantive transformation. Although Chicago demonstrates numerous characteristics of a robust city, genuine equity necessitates ongoing focus on the fundamental causes of imbalance.
Conclusion
Chicago is a significant case study in comprehending the intricacies of metropolitan community health. Evaluating its performance against HCAT indicators, access to healthy food, air and water quality, and housing and transportation, and correlating these results with the built, environmental, and social environment framework reveals a distinct disparity within neighborhoods. Even though many parts of Chicago are resilient and actively promote health, there are still big differences between groups. Adding solutions based on a goal, like community gardens, can help close these gaps. In the end, making Chicago healthy needs a big, community-based plan that is based on fairness and sustainability and includes everyone.
References
Cvetnic, N. L. (2023). Green with envy? Chicago’s sustainable architecture scene. Globalaffairs.org. https://globalaffairs.org/commentary-and-analysis/blogs/chicagoglobal/green-envy-chicagos-sustainable-architecture-scene
Facts & Statistics. (2023, June 23). Chicago.gov. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/about/facts.html
Gregis, A., Ghisalberti, C., Sciascia, S., Sottile, F., & Peano, C. (2021). Community Garden Initiatives Addressing Health and Well-Being Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Infodemiology Aspects, Outcomes, and Target Populations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1943. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041943
Healthy Communities Assessment Tool (HCAT) | Healthy Communities Assessment Tool. (2025). Huduser.gov. https://archives.huduser.gov/healthycommunities/node/160058.html
Low food access | Chicago Health Atlas. (2025). Chicago Health Atlas. https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/LFA
Soll, D. (2023). Pollution, Pipes, and Progress: Chicago’s Environment and the Question of Scale. Journal of Urban History, 50(2), 464–469. https://doi.org/10.1177/00961442221149806
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Completion requirements
Upon completion of this assignment, you ( the student) will be able to:
- Assess a mock community. (MO 2)
- Appraise a community’s health based on healthy community indicators. (MO 3)
Instructions
Initial Post: Create a 7-9 slide PowerPoint presentation providing an online assessment of Chicago as a community and upload it to VoiceThread. You will then comment on each of your slides. One of your slides should be the vision (picture you submitted in Module 4). The total duration of all your comments should be between 4-6 minutes. This amounts to about 30-45 seconds per slide. You do not need to narrate your reference slide.
- Assess. A process of assessing is seen in the Readings for this week. It is more than a windshield survey, dig deeper to gain information. Videos in Module may be of interest as you do your assessment but should not be the only resource. Do not use the textbook.
- Compare your assessment findings to three specific indicators found in The Healthy Communities Assessment Tool (HCAT) and to one of the indicators from your vision from week 4.
- Compare your assessment findings to the domains in the model posted in Building Healthy Communities Together (built environment, natural environment, and social environment) to compare with assessment findings.
- Comparing findings means analyzing what you have found within the frameworks of the indicators and three environmental domains. There should be a depth of analysis as to whether this is a healthy community or not.
- You must support your statements with citations and use APA formatting to do this. You should have at least one reference slide at the end of your presentation.
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