Evanston’s Finance and Budget Committee punted Monday night on whether to commit another $871,674 to expand the Pathway to Wellness program, deciding to delay a recommendation on the extra funding for a month to let a group of health professionals weigh in on the concept.
The program aims to bring medication and lifestyle support directly to low-income residents with uncontrolled high blood pressure, also called hypertension. The 2022 Evanston Process for the Local Assessment of Needs found that Black residents had far more emergency room visits for hypertension than white residents, and program leaders said this disparity is a critical driver in the 13-year life expectancy gap the EPLAN identified between Evanston’s neighborhoods.
“If you wanted to pick one thing to focus on, that would have the biggest impact on this life expectancy gap, you would pick lowering blood pressure,” said Dr. Beth Lynch of Rush University Medical Center, who will head up evaluation of Pathway to Wellness.
City Council originally committed $400,000 for a one-year pilot program in September 2024, drawing on federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The new request for $871,674 was first heard in early March by the Human Services Committee, which sent it to the finance committee for more discussion.
Program director Neticia Blunt-Waldron, whose business Whole Women Fitness would provide workout sessions for participants, told committee members the extra funding would extend the program from one to three years long and largely cover adding a full research component with data collection and analysis. She said the program originally did request the more than $1.2 million total budget it’s seeking now, but couldn’t get it in 2024 since the city had already committed most of its ARPA funds.
“We’ve taken components from studies that worked in several places, and we’ve combined them and made them more comprehensive,” Blunt-Waldron said. “We are taking the care to the community, and that makes us different, so we need to research that that works.”
She said the goal is to produce verifiable results that prove the program is worth a longer-term investment. Just running the health intervention program is estimated to cost the city about $75,000 annually.
But committee members were hesitant to recommend the funding request, even as a one-time expense. On top of the high-dollar price tag, the exhaustion of ARPA funds means the new money is requested out of the city’s Water Fund, which “needs every dime” for major capital projects, according to city CFO Hitesh Desai.
Instead of deciding Monday night, the committee voted 6-0 to table their recommendation vote and refer the funding request to the Evanston Health Advisory Council for another opinion. The advisory council is an informal group of health professionals from the city, school districts, local hospitals and other care providers, and the group played a significant role in developing the 2022 EPLAN.
The request will come back to the finance committee on Wednesday, May 6 for a recommendation vote, after which it will go to the full City Council for a final decision.