Chicago’s New Health Commissioner Wants Equity, Takes Aim at Disparities

In mid-November, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige as the Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, making her the first Black woman to occupy this role on a permanent basis.& But long before Dr. Ige would helm one of the largest public health departments in the country, she would witness the harrowing circumstances of her friends and family while growing up in southwest Nigeria, that would ultimately spark the recognition of her life’s calling by the time she was 10 years old. Indeed, many who enter the health profession do so out of a need to improve people’s lives, but few have had to trod the road that Dr. Ige has traversed, seeing so many loved ones succumb to preventable diseases. She grew up surrounded by premature mortality, the result of living in an under-resourced community with insufficient access to healthcare.& “So at the age of eight, I had my sister die from tuberculosis. I had a cousin die from HIV. I had friends that grew up in the same compound who died from sickle cell disease. So before I was even 10, I had the personal experience of grief and tragedy from preventable causes...