The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois Healthy Community Award

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois Healthy Community Award recognizes a successful community-based effort to address the health and wellbeing in divested neighborhoods in the Chicago metropolitan area through creative and collaborative strategies. The award welcomes creativity, innovation, and compassion in holding together communities and keeping Chicago well and lifted.

The environments in which people live, work, learn, and play have a tremendous impact on their physical, behavioral and mental health. The greatest health challenges today are complex and interconnected. Clinical services, while vitally important, are only one factor in the health of a community. The social determinants of health- economic opportunity, education neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context- play an essential role in affecting quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Therefore, the health of a community requires a holistic view and coordinated approach to community building and sustainability.

This award will celebrate the work of a successful place-based initiative that is improving the health of residents and/or the environment of a community in a way that contributes to an improvement in overall community health and creatively responds to immediate community health challenges. The award will recognize efforts that take a “Health in all Policies” approach to community development; an effort that plans and implements specific policies, programs, and processes that focus on the health of a community with attention to equity, collaboration, and sustainability.

Applicants will be evaluated by the meaningful engagement of neighborhood partners, residents, and institutions to inform and lead work that reflects innovative approaches to improving the health and well-being of their community.