Dr. Garth Walker, an executive at Rush Health and an emergency department physician who grew up on the South Side, has been appointed Chicago\u2019s next public health commissioner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see this opportunity as a culmination of my life\u2019s work,\u201d Walker, 40, said in an interview Wednesday. \u201cI wanted to become a doctor that focused on the social and economic issues that make it hard for people to get good health \u2026 where they live, breathe, eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked to increase vaccination rates in marginalized communities as deputy director at the Illinois Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n
Then he focused on youth mental health, reducing gun violence and physician burnout as a White House Fellow with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the administration of President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s the chief medical officer at Rush Health on the Near West Side, which is part of one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the region and has a goal to reduce the nearly 20-year life expectancy gap<\/u><\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n At one point, the so-called death gap between neighborhoods in Chicago was the largest<\/u><\/a> of any big city in America. Despite progress<\/u><\/a>, residents on the South and West Sides can expect to die the earliest.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do we build an infrastructure and continue to build an infrastructure that protects those communities intentionally,\u201d Walker said. \u201cThere\u2019s also an opportunity to lift up our public health leaders, those that are on the ground, those that may not feel as valued with some of the shifts in funding at the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chicago public health department oversees everything from inspecting restaurants to managing disease outbreaks. It\u2019s a big job with dwindling resources, and it\u2019s political.<\/p>\n Walker said he would continue to build out the CARE program<\/u><\/a>, where mental health workers instead of police respond to people in a mental health crisis. He said he would work to find money and new partners to jumpstart health equity zones<\/u><\/a> the city created during the pandemic that ultimately poured resources into neighborhoods across Chicago. His goal is to create a national model.<\/p>\n