After moving to America from her native Argentina, Esther Sciammarella worked in the city of Chicago’s Department of Public Health before forming a nonprofit group, the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition, aimed at filling in health care gaps and supporting improved health outcomes in the city’s Latino population.
Sciammarella also served on the Illinois State Board of Health and held several roles with the University of Illinois, including at the U. of I. Hospital and Health Science System’s Pilsen clinic and at University of Illinois Chicago’s Institute for Minority Health Research.
“Esther was a passionate leader and trailblazer in the field of health care, especially for Latino and immigrant communities,” said U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, D-Chicago, in a statement. “I had the honor of working with her in addressing community health needs as well as in developing policy that would impact Illinois as well as the nation. Her indefatigable commitment and devotion to achieving health care justice for ordinary people became her calling in life until the end.”
Sciammarella, 87, died of cancer March 27 at a hospice center in Evanston, said her son Eduardo. She had been a Streeterville resident.
Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sciammarella was trained in Argentina as a psychologist and got a bachelor’s degree from a university in Buenos Aires, her son said. She relocated to the United States with her husband in the early 1970s, he said.
The couple lived in New York for a year before moving in 1972 to Chicago, where she got a master’s degree in clinical psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1980.
In Chicago, Sciammarella first worked as a clinician, counseling families at the Pilsen Mental Health Center, now known as the Pilsen Wellness Center.
After Richard M. Daley was elected mayor in 1989, Sciammarella was hired as the special assistant to the commissioner for Hispanic affairs in the Chicago Department of Public Health.
In that role, she was the liaison between the department and the Hispanic community, working to ensure that programs and services were sensitive to Hispanics. She also helped plan health-related programs in the Latino community.
One of Sciammarella’s efforts at the Department of Public Health was to help launch a prescription exercise program in which doctors would prescribe exercises to patients who then could take free classes at Chicago Park District facilities.
In June 1991, Sciammarella formed the nonprofit Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition with a mission of promoting healthy behavior and preventing chronic diseases in the Hispanic community.
She later served as the group’s executive director for more than two decades. Among her initiatives were health education and disease prevention workshops, including training programs for community health workers based in the U. of I. Hospital and Health Sciences System’s Pilsen Family Health Center Lower West.
Sciammarella had a keen interest in cultural differences, and in trying to address unique needs in the Hispanic community.
“The only way you learn is to listen to the community,” Sciammarella said in an interview published by her alma mater, the Illinois Institute of Technology. “You need to be in the trenches and put your hands in the dirt. The tendency in public health is to create models without taking into consideration the community’s needs. You need to listen to people in order to create systems.”
Sciammarella’s work with the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition trained and informed about 30,000 people a year through its various programs, according to the IIT article. Her advocacy included efforts to shrink health disparities between Hispanic women and non-Hispanic women in Illinois.
In 2011, she told the Tribune that challenges included higher rates of obesity and diabetes among Hispanic women in Illinois when compared to non-Hispanic women.
“We need to have better planning and coordination, to make sure we help people reach the services they need,” she told the Tribune.
Sciammarella’s other roles included serving as community co-chair of partnerships and community engagement for Healthy Chicago 2.0, a program of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
She also was an investigative partner and co-chair of the Hispanic Community Health Study, a large study of Hispanic residents and health conducted by UIC and Northwestern University. And she was a visiting research associate with UIC’s Institute for Minority Health Research.
Sciammarella also contributed to author Jane L. Delgado’s 2002 book “Salud; A Latina’s Guide to Total Health.”
Gov. JB Pritzker in 2020 appointed Sciammarella to serve on the Illinois State Board of Health.
“She was constantly looking for possibilities to help people in the community and being a kind of support for everybody who went to talk with her and went looking for help,” said local artist Martha Ponzio, a longtime friend and fellow Argentina native. “She helped me in everything I needed since moving here 33 years ago.”
Sciammarella never retired.
In addition to her son, Sciammarella is survived by her husband of 59 years, Cesar; another son, Federico; three grandchildren; and a sister, Gladys Giordano.
Services are private.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
