University of Illinois Cancer Center members and University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) researchers are among the featured speakers at GreenTown Climate & Equity, an event that will bring together public, private and government leaders focused on how “climate solutions and equity go hand-in-hand to create a healthy, sustainable west suburban Cook County for all.”
Many west suburban Cook County communities, including Maywood, Broadview and others, have high rates of cancer deaths.
Register for Climate & Equity Summit
You can register here for the June 22 event, which will be held at Triton College in suburban River Grove.
Cancer Center members Kristen Malecki, PhD, Professor and Director of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the UIC School of Public Health, and Saria Lofton, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor at the UIC College of Nursing and a health disparities researcher, are part of the breakout session “Environmental and Economic Drivers of Health Disparities: The Influence of Climate Change.” Both are part of the Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control research program.
They will be joined by Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, Oak Park Department of Public Health Director Theresa Chapple-McGruder, PhD, an alumna of the UIC School of Public Health, and Elena Grossman, MPH, Senior Research Specialist at the UIC School of Public Health.
What to Expect
“In this session, we will present a longitudinal spatial analysis that sheds light on the overlapping environmental and health risks in the western suburbs and communities of Cook County. We will also explore the intersections of food and environmental justice and how they can be utilized to promote equity in cancer and other health outcomes,” according to the event agenda.