A majority of candidates hoping to oust Mayor Lori Lightfoot from City Hall’s fifth floor office have pledged to reopen public mental health clinics. Lightfoot said her network of nonprofit Trauma-Informed Centers of Care provide better and more accessible service. 

It’s been three years since the first Chicago COVID-19 case was confirmed. Since then, more than four million people in Illinois have been diagnosed with coronavirus; it has killed more than 36,000 people in the state.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed a simplified approach for future vaccination efforts, allowing most adults and children to get a once-a-year shot to protect against the mutating virus.

The Mobility Opportunities Fund will provide stipends that help limited-income residents of North Lawndale purchase conventional bikes, e-bikes, e-cargo bikes and electric vehicles.

Since transitioning to a new line, in the past six months, about 2.1 million calls, texts and chats to the new 988 number have been routed to a response center and, of those, around 89% were answered by a counselor, according to a CNN analysis of data from SAMHSA, which oversees 988. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill that provides more protection for patients coming to Illinois to seek gender-affirming health care. The move comes as several states attempt to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender people.

The Chicago City Council could vote on what the mayor’s office called a “small scale” pilot program as soon as Feb. 1 — less than a month before Election Day.

The pandemic disrupted vaccinations and other routine health care for children, and also taxed the ability of school administrators and nurses to track which children weren’t up-to-date on shots.

Politicians have blasted the notion of banning gas stoves after a federal regulator seemed open to it. It turns out, there are no plans to shut off the stoves for now — but there are significant concerns about their health risks.

Medical debt affects 27% of Cook County residents. Of those, 42% are people of color.

Wastewater sampling has been a key early-warning tool for detecting spikes in the spread of COVID-19, and now Illinois is making its data available to the public through an interactive online dashboard.

The longstanding practice of “watchful waiting,” or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens outgrow or overcome obesity on their own only worsens the problem that affects more than 14.4 million young people in the U.S.

According to the American Heart Association, about 55% of Black adults have high blood pressure. Black Americans also have disproportionately high rates of severe hypertension and tend to develop it earlier in life.

Organizations across the city are working to provide more mental health services to Black and Latino Chicagoans. Part of that effort involves growing a more diverse pool of therapists.

Howard Brown Health will next year mark 50 years of serving the health needs of the LBGTQ and HIV-positive communities. Going forward, it will do so minus about 16% of its workforce. 

A total of 35% of legal-aged U.S. adults skipped alcohol for the entirety of January in 2022 — that’s an increase from 21% in 2019, according to food and drink research firm CGA.