(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Wait times for mental health treatment have exploded during the pandemic, as more people struggle with anxiety and depression. On Wednesday, the Cook County Public Health Department began accepting applications from groups looking to help offer health care.
Cook County Health’s COO Dr. Lamar Hasbrouck said they’re awarding $14 million in federal COVID relief — in the form of grants — to charities, schools, health centers and local governments.
Those groups will offer help addressing opioid abuse, positive youth programming and mental health treatment.
“We’re giving them large buckets of areas, and then we want to encourage their own creativity and innovation to figure out what solutions work best at the local level,” Hasbrouck said.
Hasbrouck said the department is also offering technical assistance at workshops.
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“We can actually teach you how to apply, get a solid application in, we can take you all the way through … in terms of your program design, how to monitor, how to report, how to be in alignment with the legal requirements,” he said.
The announcement came at the same time Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha said they’re launching a data portal examining and addressing racial disparities in medical treatment for cancer and other serious diseases.
“We will tackle long standing inequities by developing comprehensive solutions that will disrupt the hold that social risk factors have on our community,” Rocha said.
The data portal, dubbed the “Health Atlas,” will be funded by a NIH National Cancer Institute grant, which specifically targets minority and underserved populations.
“Our government, researchers, health care professionals, and community organizations can better understand the issues facing our residents and the interventions that may address health inequities,” said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
Dr. Urjeet Patel, an ear, nose and throat physician at Stroger Hospital said they’re using federal grant money specifically targeting minority patients to study why Black men have the highest rate of prostate cancer, as well as why Hispanic men and women are twice as likely to get liver cancer.
“We know that cancer disproportionately affects certain racial and ethnic minorities, and our goal here is to put an end to that,” Patel said.
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