Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
VITAL: Vital Investments To Advance Life expectancy - Project Summary The gap in life expectancy between Black and White people, which hovers around ten years in major US cities, reflects profound inequities in our society and necessitates urgent and transformative action. It is increasingly acknowledged that the social and structural neighborhood conditions resulting from disinvestment in segregated Black neighborhoods are the root cause of health disparities in Black people. These social determinants lead to chronic stress and unhealthy behaviors, which ultimately lead to poor cardiovascular (CV) health. If neighborhood environments are the root cause of reduced life expectancy in Black people, the solution to the Black-White life expectancy gap is to improve the social and structural determinants of health in Black neighborhoods. The proposed research takes advantage of a unique opportunity to measure the impact on CV health of a major social and capital investment in a predominantly Black, highly segregated, high poverty neighborhood in Chicago: West Garfield Park. The Sankofa Wellness Village, a $50 million investment which is set to open at the end of 2025, is a community designed set of initiatives to dramatically improve social determinants of health in the neighborhood. The initiatives include a wellness center (with a health clinic, a YMCA with a gym and walking track, a community-owned credit union and a café), a business center to support local entrepreneurs, an arts and performance center, and a grocer initiative to provide local access to healthy food. The Sankofa Wellness Village will rapidly transform a community with limited resources to one boasting a wide array of tailored services and recreational amenities aimed at improving community health. Our approach will be to measure change in social needs and CV health in a cohort of residents before and after the opening of the Sankofa Wellness Village in West Garfield Park. To control for the influence of external factors on social needs and cardiovascular health in West Garfield Park, we will assess changes in the same measures in Englewood, another disinvested community located in a different area of Chicago. We hypothesize that by transforming many of the structural and social determinants of health that are the root causes of CVD, the Sankofa Wellness Village will lead to reduced social needs, improved psychological well- being, and improved Life’s Essential 8 CV health behaviors and health factors in residents of West Garfield Park relative to residents of Englewood. This finding would significantly contribute to advancing health equity by offering direct causal evidence that investing in impoverished Black neighborhoods to improve social determinants of health is a viable solution to narrowing the Black-white life expectancy gap.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).