Center for Community Health Equity (CCHE) (UNI-012)

Summary 🟡 ~

• Owner Unit: College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
• Sub-unit: Center for Community Health Equity
• Content Type: center
• Campus/Location: Multi-campus (DePaul LAS + Rush collaborations)
• Last Verified: July 1, 2026

Description & capabilities

The Center for Community Health Equity (CCHE) strives to improve community health outcomes and contribute to the elimination of health inequities in Chicago. Co-founded by DePaul University and Rush University in 2015, CCHE integrates analysis, education, and intervention with Chicago communities, organizing research across levels of study—individuals, neighborhoods, Chicago, and cross-city comparisons—and combining public health, medical knowledge, and public policy. CCHE is administratively housed in DePaul's College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences while operating as a joint DePaul–Rush partnership, connecting DePaul faculty and students across LAS, CSH, Business, CDM, and Communication with Rush health-sciences faculties for health-equity research, community initiatives, and student project opportunities.

Access status

• Level: yellow (Negotiated Access)
• Rationale: CCHE is a joint DePaul–Rush center; public sites describe mission and partners but operational research access requires center or partner authorization.
• Access URL: healthequitychicago.org/about-us/who-we-are
• Verification date: 2026-07-01
• Source URLs:
• healthequitychicago.org/about-us/who-we-are

Verification

• Status: likely (~)
• Confidence: 82/100
• Rationale: Legacy evidence aligned with kernel provenance (depaul/XTR-000072); primary source: healthequitychicago.org/about-us/who-we-are
• Last verified: 2026-07-01
• Evidence:
• Maria Joy Ferrera, PhD, LCSW — Co-Director, Center for Community Health Equity — mferrera@depaul.edu (healthequitychicago.org/about-us/who-we-are)

Equipment

Center-level community health equity research; no standalone equipment inventory.

Last verified: May 28, 2026.

Contacts (resource-level)

• Website: Center for Community Health Equity (public site)
• Website: DePaul CCHE (LAS)
• Website: Rush CCHE

People & contacts

Named contacts from the people registry when publicly documented.

• Maria Joy Ferrera (Director) — mferrera@depaul.edu

Source URL

Official links are listed under Contacts above.

Documented Relationships

Joint DePaul–Rush center for health equity, administratively hosted by DePaul's College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

• Co-founded with EXT-010 - Rush University (2015); expanded under a 2021 memorandum of understanding between the universities.
• Student projects include Rush community health needs assessment support, Chicago health-disparities comparisons, and community-service learning pathways (Rush CCHE).
• Publications and community reports on health equity (see healthequitychicago.org).
• Related DePaul units: UNI-004 (Steans Center — community engagement), CDM-011 (data/imaging), EXT-009 (Sinai/SUHI — complementary community health research).

Linked Relationship IDs

• EXT-010 - Rush University
• EXT-009 - Sinai Urban Health Institute — Sinai Chicago
• EXT-011 - Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS)
• UNI-004 - Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning
• CDM-011 - VIDA / MedIX / IMP Labs

Notes

Joint center — DePaul is co-founder and administrative host (College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences), so this is a UNI resource page with Rush University recorded as a linked external partner (EXT-010) rather than an external-only EXT entry.

Collaboration provenance: founding partnership active since 2015; expanded DePaul–Rush MOU signed 2021 (Rush news); CCHE governance/charter text not publicly posted (map verification, May 2026).

Source: NIH STRONG BRIDGE Facilities + public CCHE sites (May 2026).