![]() (Joshua Clark/University of Illinois Chicago) ‘I feel like I can do anything’ Jamaal Fridge, a COVID-19 outreach team supervisor, stocks up on outreach forms and care kits as the team set out to survey the Mayfair neighborhood on Wednesday, April 21, in Chicago. They shared their thoughts during a n outreach visit to the North Mayfair neighborhood on the city’s Northwest Side recently. “ We’re helping them build capacity, not just a job,” Floyd said. The outreach specialists also are learning about new career possibilities, learning about public health and UIC, and considering ways to rewrite their narratives, Gutierrez said. Team members also collect demographics and COVID-19 status data on their interactions with individuals in the community. Once neighborhoods are identified, the team visits the area to locate high foot-traffic areas where they can conduct outreach. It researches which neighborhoods to visit based on the C ity of Chicago’s COVID-19 data dashboard, which shows areas that have high COVID-19 positivity rates and low testing rates. The team does more than pass out information. “They had no experience in public health and never thought their perspective was valuable,” Gutierrez said. The team, most of whom never worked in public health before, all come from the Chicago communities they are serving. By February 2021, a team of 15 street outreach specialists and four street outreach supervisors were hired and trained to deliver information on COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and distribute personal protection equipment to Chicago’s neighborhoods at high risk for COVID-19 infection. The hiring process began in September 2020. They also built job opportunities.īrenikki Floyd, a c linical a ssistant p rofessor in Community Health Sciences, and Edgar Gutierrez, p roject c oordinator for UIC’s Community Outreach Intervention Projects, develop ed a program that not only provides COVID-19 outreach, but also creates jobs for those whose employment was affected by the pandemic.īy working with several other community organizations and national partnerships, UIC received funding to build a COVID -19 S treet O utreach Team. When the call went out for a hyper – impact team focused on COVID-19 testing and vaccinating high-risk communities, members of the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health took the opportunity to go beyond outreach.
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