A Brief Overview of the Lake County Health Department/Community Health Center
The Health Department was established by referendum in 1956, as a state-certified public health department. At that time, the staff consisted of a handful of people. Today, our budget of approximately $70 million supports 60 separately funded programs. More than 1000 professionals assist our daily mission of health promotion, illness prevention and protection of the environment.
As the largest human service provider in Lake County, we believe that services must be available without barriers. No residents are turned away due to an inability to pay. We also believe in providing services in an environment of mutual respect, free of discrimination or bias.
The Health Department is governed by a 12-member Board of Health. Members are appointed by the Lake County Board, and are Lake County residents of various backgrounds.
We are proud to be among the top 6 percent of 2,864 local health departments nationwide by population serviced, financing and workforce. We thank the organizations we partner with to achieve our goals, as well as the Board of Health, our Governing Council and Lake County Board members for their direction and leadership.
In addition, we are a member of the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium, a 501 (c)(4) membership organization of the public health departments that serve the City of Chicago and the Counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, Will, and Winnebago. The mission of NIPHC is to promote and protect the health of the region though networking and collaborative action that raises public awareness, builds constituency, and influences legislation and policies concerning public health issues affecting northern Illinois.
The Core Functions and Essential Services of Public Health
Over 15 years ago, The Institute of Medicine formulated the now familiar three core functions of public health: assessment, policy development and assurance. But many thought these terms failed to communicate meaning to the general public and public health staff. A broad national work group developed a vision and mission for public health, as well as a list of the 10 essential public health services. Most of these services fall under the three core functions of public health, as follows:
Assessment
- Monitor health status to identify community health problems
- Includes diagnosing the community's health status and assessment of health service needs
- Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community
- Includes epidemiological identification of emerging health threats and active, day to day communicable disease surveillance
Policy Development
- Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues
- Includes social marketing, media relations and health education
- Mobilize community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems
- Includes convening and facilitating community groups and coalition building
- Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts
- Includes community and state level planning for health improvement, tracking of measurable health objectives and development of legislation to guide the practice of public health
Assurance
- Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety
- Includes full enforcement of sanitary codes, full protection of drinking water supplies and monitoring of quality medical services
- Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of healthcare when otherwise unavailable
- Includes assuring effective entry for disadvantaged people into a coordinated system of care
- Assure a competent public and personal healthcare workforce
- Includes continuing education and training for personnel and adoption of continuous quality improvement and life-long learning
- Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services
- Includes ongoing evaluation of health programs
System Management
- Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
- Includes continuous linkage with appropriate institutions of higher learning and research, i.e., best practices
