ILBCF awards Brain Trust on Health grants to medical professionals
The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation awarded five medical professionals $5,000 grants. PHOTO PROVIDED BY ILBCF.
The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation recently awarded five Black medical professionals a $5,000 grant, with the goal of improving health outcomes for Black people in Illinois.
The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation was founded in 2002, with the mission to protect, develop and advance Black communities throughout the State of Illinois. It launched the Innovative Policy Solutions Brain Trust in 2021.
The Brain Trust on Health is an interdisciplinary approach, with Black medical professionals, to take an in depth look at health policy and ways to transform health policy to improve health outcomes for Black Illinoisans.
Tiffany Hightower, Executive Director of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, said the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’ Four Pillars to End Systemic Racism in Illinois inspired the programs ILBCF launched.
“When you look at the fourth pillar, which is Healthcare and Human Services, which was approved in January 2021, I started to dissect that pillar and look at it from the Foundation standpoint of what type of tangible initiatives could we create to really show how critically important the items in that pillar actually were,” Hightower said.
The Healthcare Pillar was introduced by State Senator Mattie Hunter and State Representative Camille Lilly. The Brain Trust on Health meets quarterly to look at how to ensure true transformation in the improvement of health outcomes for Black Illinoisans can really be accomplished through policy.
Zooming in further to Black representation in the medical field, the Foundation wanted to give 11 doctors across the state of Illinois who worked in marginalized communities $5,000 to pay down their medical school debt.
Hightower said there is an impediment to generational wealth in the healthcare sector because Black doctors do not graduate at the same financial footing as other affinity groups.
“Although we know that $5,000 is not a lot, we looked at it as a way to bring light to this issue, but to also help, just a little bit,” she said, adding that when there is Black representation in the medical field, there should also be efforts made to support it and sustain it.
In 2022, ILBCF launched the application process for the grant awards for the medical professionals. And in September 2023, five Black medical professionals were awarded $5,000. Those medical professionals were Dr. Leslie Amonoo, MD, Dr. Annette Grotheer, MD, MPH, Dr. Carl Lambert, MD, FAAFP, Dr. Christopher Smyre, MD, MA and Dr. James Stinson MD, MS.
“They’re doing the work and they’re doing the work in Black communities,” Hightower said. “They’re really awesome.”
The doctors who received the grants will serve on the Brain Trust on Health, so they can be part of the solution making. They will help with the health initiative work for the Foundation.
ILBCF also visited Accra, Ghana in January 2023. During that visit, members of the delegation were told about the need for incubators. ILBCF partnered with Project C.U.R.E., a Chicago-based nonprofit organization, and were able to donate medical supplies to hospitals in Ghana.
For more information about ILBCF, visit www.ilbcf.org.
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