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GE 6 East Garfield Park development plan altered after community gives input PAGE
FREE Vol. 35 No. 47
November 24, 2021
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New report sounds alarm about racial health disparities
Five Black female researchers were driving force behind the Chicago Department of Public Health’s State of Health for Blacks report By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
The fact that majority-Black communities in Chicago are more likely to have residents with health issues and shorter life expectancies than other communities was hardly news to the members of the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council’s Health and Wellness Committee. But a recent Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) report shared during the committee’s Nov. 16 meeting puts some hard numbers behind that well-known reality. The State of Health for Blacks report found that, between 2012 and 2017, the life expectancy gap between Black and non-Black Chicagoans increased from 8.3 years to 9.2 years. Although there were a number of reasons for the increase, the authors cited five driving factors: chronic disease, violent crime, infant mortality, infectious disease and opioid overdoses. Most notably, the report found that, in ChicaSee HEALTH REPORT on page 3
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West Side drivers stopped by cops most in Chicago A Chicago Police squad car on June 30, 2021.
COLIN BOYLE/Block Club Chicago
The data, which shows 94% of stops don’t lead to tickets, raises questions about the constitutionality and effectiveness of the stops By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
People driving on the West Side are the most likely to be pulled over by police, with small pockets of the city accounting for far greater percentages of stops than much larger affluent areas. But if officers are pulling over drivers in the predominantly Black neighbor-
hoods with the intent of searching for guns or drugs, as some critics suspect, the strategy is not effective. The stops largely don’t lead to gun or drug seizures — and rarely even lead to traffic tickets. An analysis of 2020 Chicago traffic stop data shows Black drivers in West Side neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted by the department’s unequal traffic enforcement. In one five-by-eight-block
stretch on the West Side, there were more traffic stops than in a 31.5-square-mile police district on the outskirts of the city. The analysis raises questions about whether Chicago police are targeting traffic stops in majority Black neighborhoods to try to prevent crime — a move that would violate people’s constitutional See TRAFFIC STOPS on page 8
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