This past Friday, January 15, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about Health & Medicine Board member Aida Gaichello:
chicagotribune.com
Aida Giachello, creator of Latino health center, looks out for minorities
Creator of health center tries to raise awareness among all communities
By Patty Pensa
Special to the Tribune
January 15, 2010
At an early age, Aida Giachello knew what it meant to be poor. It meant welfare, with her father living somewhere else because the family needed the checks. It meant gangs and drugs in the Spanish Harlem neighborhood where she lived for seven years. And it meant starting to work early -- at age 13.
But being poor also gave shape to her life's work as a health activist for Chicago's Hispanic community, which numbers some three-quarters of a million residents. "Being raised in poverty, seeing the struggle of my parents really created a sense of direction about the kinds of problems we experience as a group, as minorities and women," said Giachello, 64.
The native of Puerto Rico found her way to Chicago through a post-graduate research project with Northwestern University. After finishing her doctorate in sociology, Giachello settled in Chicago and immersed herself in social work in the Hispanic community. She came to focus on health issues.
Her early work led her in 1993 to create the Midwest Latino Health, Research, Training and Policy Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also teaches. Giachello has gained prominence as director of the Midwest Latino center, which she helped replicate in fast-growing Hispanic hubs throughout the Midwest. Read more
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