Prediabetes and diabetes are leading public health problems in Cook County, Illinois, with 9.9% of adults diagnosed with diabetes and an estimated 1.3 million adults with prediabetes. Throughout Chicago and Cook County, there are disparities in diabetes prevalence by race/ethnicity, income and disability. Working to prevent and manage diabetes in high-risk priority populations and addressing social determinants of health is vital to improving health and equity.
In response to Component B of the notice of funding opportunity, the Cook County Collaboration to Advance Reach, Equity and Systems for Diabetes Prevention and Management (Cook County CARES) project aims to decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes among adults with prediabetes, improve self-care practices and quality of care for people with type 2 diabetes, and work to decrease body mass index (BMI) for children and caregivers in high-risk populations in Cook County, Illinois. To achieve this, the Illinois Public Health Institute (IPHI) will increase capacity and develop systems to launch and scale a continuum of diabetes prevention and management programs. IPHI will 1) leverage partnerships with organizations working in priority communities to culturally tailor the program recruitment, delivery and retention efforts; and 2) develop county-wide and/or regional systems designed to sustain and support long-term growth of diabetes prevention and management programs. Led by IPHI, Cook County CARES will build on successes in launching, expanding, and creating pathways to NDPP sustainability in Chicago that were funded by the CDC 1817 cooperative agreement. IPHI will expand efforts geographically to priority populations in suburban Cook County and broaden the continuum of services available to include DSMES (NOFO strategy 1) and family-centered childhood obesity intervention programs (NOFO strategy 8) in addition to NDPP (NOFO strategy 5) in culturally tailored and accessible ways for program participants. The project will also increase the diabetes workforce’s capacity to address SDOH (NOFO strategy 13).
IPHI proposes to work in Cook County, Illinois as the “high need” county for this proposal, reaching nearly a third of the 5.1 million residents who meet the proposed priority population criteria of people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), people with lower incomes, and people who lived in identified geographies that have diabetes rates over 10% and social-vulnerability indices in the top 40% of the state of Illinois.
