How the Chicago Department of Public Health Uses the Chicago Health Atlas to Track Life Expectancy and Advance Health Outcomes 

Public HealthHealth AtlasData Analytics
Written By Isabella Beaupre

About the Customer

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) is responsible for protecting and promoting the health of more than 2.7 million residents. With one of the nation’s most diverse populations, CDPH monitors health outcomes across the city and works to close long-standing gaps in life expectancy.  

As part of its Healthy Chicago 2025 Strategic Plan, CDPH prioritizes transparency, accountability, and equity, using data not only to guide policy but also to empower communities. 

The Challenge

When COVID-19 struck in 2020, Chicago’s life expectancy dropped sharply, exposing and widening existing health inequities. CDPH needed to understand the scale of the decline, the pace of recovery, and, most critically, who was being left behind. The task was complex. Life expectancy is shaped by many factors, including chronic disease, violence, overdoses, and maternal and infant health — and the burden is not distributed equally. 

By 2023, CDPH had early signs of progress, life expectancy was rebounding citywide! But averages weren’t enough. The department still needed to answer tough questions: Which neighborhoods and racial groups were seeing the greatest gains? Which remained below pre-pandemic levels? What causes of death were driving the persistent 10-plus-year gap between Black and non-Black residents? And how could this information be shared in a way that built trust, drove accountability, and connected data to the city’s broader health strategies? 

To meet these challenges, CDPH decided to publish a comprehensive Life Expectancy Data Brief and make the underlying data available to policymakers, media, and the public. 

““The significant gains we’ve made in life expectancy are the result of years of coordinated efforts across the city. Nearly eliminating COVID-19 deaths — once the largest driver of the racial life expectancy gap — has been key. We’re also seeing progress in reducing deaths from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and homicide, particularly among Black Chicagoans.” ”
— Dr. Simbo Ige, CDPH Commissioner

The Solution

CDPH turned to the Chicago Health Atlas, powered by Metopio, to bring clarity to a complex problem. By integrating death records, census data, and cause-of-death classifications, the Atlas provided a single, trusted platform for analyzing and visualizing life expectancy across the city.  Instead of static spreadsheets, the Atlas made trends and disparities clear.  

CDPH could now see how overall life expectancy rebounded to 78.7 years in 2023, nearly back to its pre-pandemic peak, while also identifying the neighborhoods and groups still far behind. The Atlas highlighted the biggest contributors to the racial gap (chronic disease, homicide, and opioid overdoses) allowing leaders to target interventions with greater precision. 

And perhaps most importantly, the Atlas is a public-facing tool. Through the Chicago Health Atlas, journalists, policymakers, and community groups access the same insights CDPH uses internally. This transparency fuels accountability, builds trust, and enables community partners to leverage the data in grant proposals, program design, and advocacy. For CDPH leadership, the Atlas became more than an analytical engine — it became a communication platform, helping connect data to action as part of the Healthy Chicago 2025 plan. 

Metopio’s Impact

The Chicago Health Atlas transformed how CDPH measures, shares, and acts on life expectancy data. By surfacing clear, accessible insights, the Atlas helped the city demonstrate real progress: after losing years during the pandemic, Chicagoans gained back 3.5 years of life expectancy since 2020. At the same time, Atlas revealed the nuance behind those numbers — Black and Latino residents saw the greatest rebound, but only white residents have fully returned to or exceeded their pre-pandemic life expectancy. 

The Atlas also exposed the disparities that persist. It showed that residents of the Loop can expect to live more than 20 years longer than those in West Garfield Park, and that the racial gap between Black and non-Black Chicagoans remains more than a decade. By quantifying the drivers of this gap, from heart disease to homicide, Atlas equips CDPH and its partners to target their interventions more effectively. 

Beyond CDPH, the Atlas has become a trusted public resource. Community groups now use the platform to strengthen grant applications and advocate for change. By powering the Chicago Health Atlas, Metopio turned raw statistics into actionable intelligence, positioning Chicago as a national model for how health data can drive accountability and measurable impact. 

Key Takeaways 

  • Life expectancy is rebounding in Chicago, but inequities remain. 

  • The Atlas revealed nuance: recovery is uneven across neighborhoods and racial groups, with gaps still exceeding a decade. 

  • Transparency drives trust: by making data public, CDPH has strengthened accountability and enabled community partners to take action. 

  • Metopio’s platform connects data to decisions: empowering CDPH to measure progress, target resources, and advance its Healthy Chicago 2025 strategic plan.  

Is your community ready to map progress and close gaps? 

Metopio’s Atlas helps health departments, hospitals, and community organizations turn complex data into clarity. From monitoring life expectancy to tracking chronic disease and health equity, Atlas delivers insights that empower better decisions and stronger outcomes. 

Isabella Beaupre
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