>> Who gets the chance to be healthy.

Dr.

David and Saul argues that while everyone deserves to be healthy, not all get the chance in his new book Crossing The Gap, Healing epidemics and inequalities in a divided city, author Ansel goes behind diagnosing Chicago's ten-year age expectancy gap instead, he offers solutions beyond clinical care, mainly investing in communities.

Joining us to talk about ways of increasing life expectancies in Chicago is author Dr David and Soul.

He also serves as the senior vice president for community health equity at Rush University Medical Center.

Welcome back.

Doctor, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having on.

So let's say you are meeting with 2 families and I'm basing this question off of how you start your But one of those families has a higher life expectancy.

The other has a lower life expectancy.

What would we expect to hear from both of those families about medical or job history, their relation to the neighborhood, local investment.

What would illustrate what how about illustrate this life expectancy gap?

Yes, well, I posed that question to the Rush board.

>> Back in 2016.

This idea that something that I knew about because it worked to Cook County Hospital.

17 years Mount Sinai in the North Lawndale neighborhood for a decade before coming to rush and I pose this to the board that if you lived in the low, you could live to be 87 years old.

If it were a country, it be ranked first in the world.

Think Monaco or Spain, but you go 7 stops down the blue line, 3 stops, pass rush and in West Garfield Park, the life expectancy was at the time around.

67 about a 20 year life expectancy gap and Rush is a terrific hospital.

I was the chief medical officer for all it shrank and U.S.

news and World Report one of 20 along with Northwestern, but no amount of improve medical care would solve the problem of that life expectancy, cap or Twitter neighborhood conditions?

Well, because a lot of people would would hear something like that.

The difference in those 2 neighborhoods in immediately say, oh, it's violence.

Violence is making the life expectancy there.

Lower.

>> But that's not the only problem is so interesting.

You say that because I give talks, I say a 16 year-old teenage boy.

>> Who lives in West Garfield Park as a little bit more in a 50, 50 chance of living to the age of 65.

What's the reason people say violence?

Well, actually, heart disease is number one and cancer and chronic disease accounts for the largest part of Yes, homicides, a problem overdose or problem, but it's actually it actually the legacy of of redlining and racial segregation by that was legalize.

But it's not.

That is the segregation from opportunity.

It's things that we can actually do something about.

But it wasn't going to be health and health care.

So we set about trying to solve the problem back.

Starting back in 2016 and that's what crossing that cap is about.

That story.

>> Yes, because the last time we spoke last time you were here are your book at the time was the death gap which that identified the problem and this book crossing the Gap.

It seems to be a documentation of how you went about solving the problem.

Why should a hospital bother with solving the neighborhood problem.

That's a great question.

You health and health care in this country.

It there's a lot of friction around us.

>> spend more money in this country for health and health care than any other country on the planet by a factor of 2 to 3 and yet our outcomes in terms of life expectancy nationwide, we are 38 and the world and for premature mortality, meaning dying before the age of 65 were 60th in the world.

And United States has been deviating off curve from like the European nations over the past 20 plus years.

And so health and health care is not going to solve the problem.

Another hospital doesn't solve the problem deeper than that.

It's the conditions under which people live work and play.

And that's what we set off to solve.

Not to give up on quality health care.

That's important.

But how do you keep people from getting sick and what do we owe our neighborhoods and away as a doctor, I learned how to treat patients, but this required us to think through how do you diagnose and and actually treat neighborhoods?

>> So should have a life expectancy.

It reached 79.5 years in 2024.

While black life expectancy reach 73.3 years, the gap between black and non-black.

Chicagoans narrowed from 10.6 years in 2023 to 9.4 years in 2024.

West Garfield Park West Garfield Parks estimated life expectancy rose to about 70, which is to lower.

But it's higher than it It's roughly 3 years higher than the year before.

Yes, would you do?

how did you do that?

You know, it's it's friend of mine says you get one point in the world for pointing out the problem and 100 points for fixing up.

>> We're on the path to fixing that.

We're crossing the gap.

That's why I named the book Crossing.

We haven't crossed the cap.

But what we did was to understand what does it really take for people to be healthy?

It's not just your beliefs, your behaviors in your biology, it's the conditions.

And what do you have in your neighborhood?

So if you look at you know, the Westside of Chicago, which is about 600,000 people, little less, it's bigger than, you know, Memphis or, you know, many cities, Atlanta.

And yet, you know, there's not many grocery stores.

There are some, you know, there's they're not even a lot to doctors, offices in those neighborhoods are on the on the edges.

So we thought about what was needed and went and talked to the residents.

We actually got other hospitals.

You I health Mount Sinai, Cook County Health, Lurie, Children's Ascension, and we partner with the community to create something called Westside United.

It's a great organization and Westside United Partner with the hospitals said walk in the hospitals too, to solve the problems that the resident staff and we went and asked the residents what they needed and they didn't want more clinics.

They said we want.

We want safe places to walk.

We want you to support local businesses.

We want to do invest in our children.

Our children are feeling hopeless.

You know, we need mental health in our neighborhoods.

And yes, they did need health care and access to health care.

I don't want to minimize that, but they needed the other things that are called the social and structural determinants of health.

So when partnering with the communities, we asked the communities what they want and we presented the life expectancy gap to them.

And I'm sitting at the tables.

2017 was passed to Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church.

He says the Bible says the last shall be first.

And I realized I had never been West Garfield Park.

So that started a partnership with Westside United Pastor Hatch, lots of community organizations on the West Side 2 in visitor a solution and the solution the community came up with was a something called the Sankofa Wellness village.

just for what does that include?

Because some of what you heard from residents was a basketball court.

Some new also.

>> He started got the hospitals to start doing their own laundry right here in Chicago, in the sending it to Wisconsin.

I think yeah, yeah.

So it's it's was first of all.

I had a tragedy in my life because my best friend died.

>> As I was I was chief medical officer Rush and said, you know, he had been working on these problems, brilliant epidemiologist, Steve Lipman.

So I sort of said it's time for me to go back to those roots.

We have started together doing this work that Pastor Hatch and he he has this window in chart.

I have brought the book here to fall.

It's called the Sankofa peace window.

It was designed by a church member and around the edges are martyrs.

4 girls who were martyred in Birmingham in 1963, and then a group of martyrs, young men and women the bottom who are victims violence in Chicago, including look on requirement on a look.

While McDonald High Day of Pendleton and in the middle of black Jesus.

Leading children a future of abundance and peace and prosperity.

This window.

Became the inspiration for the Sankofa village, which is a wellness center, which has a YMCA young man from his community.

Pastor Hatches community came to us that Russian Ted, we need a basketball court.

Yeah.

we ask the why to come to West Garfield Park we've got a clinic to go there.

West side tonight is there.

And in Russia's has mental health services.

So it's yeah.

So a lot of work, right?

And then only because we've got 30 seconds left.

Doctor.

>> You're in a unique position.

The hospital is to address this issue.

couple things that other cities could borrow and replicate other 748 cities in United States with the least a 12 year life expectancy gap within their met.

We can do these things, but it's not traditional.

And you've got a partner with the community.

Listen to the community and then walk alongside them for so long as it takes the life expectancy gap is narrowing on the West side.

We can't take credit for it, but I can say if you don't anything gonna fix it sounds like you've got a blueprint.

Dr, David, and thank you so much.

That's if believe it again.

The book is called