2025’s Community Leader Honoree: Cook County Department of Public Health

Tiara Whitlock
May 14
3 min read

Every year the Clear Language Lab honors a community organization that has shown meaningful commitment to equitable communication and plain language. This year we are proud to acknowledge the work of Cook County Department of Health (CCDPH) as the recipient of the Clear Language Lab’s Community Leader Award.

CCDPH recently launched their new Organizational Health Literacy Toolkit and Resource Hub. The toolkit was created to increase organizational health literacy and to create a more equitable public healthcare system. The Clear Language Lab was proud to work in partnership with CCDPH to create this valuable resource.

Recently, the Clear Language Lab team talked with Dr. Darcie Moeller, MD, MPH about what organizational health literacy is, why it is important, and how CCDPH is working to create more effective systems to support thriving communities and advance health equity.

Top row: Melanie Sampson and Dr. Darcie Moeller. Bottom row: Sarah Glazer and Tiara Whitlock

Here are some interesting highlights from our conversation with Dr. Moeller:

The meaning of public health

Public health focuses on keeping populations healthy. This includes prevention, regulation of public shared spaces, and monitoring of disease.

The main work, however, includes asking: What is making us healthy or unhealthy? For Dr. Moeller, this can include “almost everything in your environment that you can think of: access to greenspaces, walkable neighborhoods, whether or not there is gun violence to worry about…” Public health can cover a wide range of community health needs. To put it simply, Dr. Moeller defines public health as “taking care of populations”.

Defining Organizational Health Literacy

CCDPH just launched an extensive toolkit with resources for organizations to implement health literacy practices and systems.

Organizational health literacy according to Dr. Moeller is looking at how “the organization is enabling people to interact with their services… It’s making the systems easier to navigate.” This includes looking at how each program is accessed by, advertised to, attended by, and used by participants. When these areas are addressed and participants are able to successfully engage with and utilize the health organization’s programs and services, public health improves.

The important role of community health workers

Community health workers (CHWs) are an integral part of organizational health literacy. CHWs are people who work with health organizations to share available programs and services with the communities they themselves live in. Since CHWs are part of the communities they work in, they are “trusted messengers of health information. They are vital connectors of people in the community to health care, health services, or social services.” For Dr. Moeller, CHWs are an important way that people can “find, understand, and use health information and services.”

Good things are still happening!

Despite recent events that have impacted funding within the public health community, Dr. Moeller is “pleasantly surprised, and impressed, and excited by how much people are banding together… Organizations are pulling together.” Many partners are looking for ways to help each other, continue working together, and voicing their commitment to continue their shared mission. Instead of taking a stance of defeat, organizations are feeling empowered to continue their work in spite of funding changes.

Through their commitment to organizational health literacy and partnership with trusted community voices, CCDPH is creating more accessible, equitable, and just healthcare systems. We at the Clear Language Lab are honored to recognize their leadership and dedication. We look forward to a future where everyone has the tools they need to understand, access, and benefit from the care they deserve.

If you would like to watch the entire conversation we had with Dr. Moeller, you can view it here.