About Us

University of Illinois Chicago

The University of Illinois Chicago, in collaboration with National Jewish Health, established the Black Lung Center of Excellence (BLCOE) in 2014, with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Office of Rural Health Policy. Since then, the BLCOE has provided services to many HRSA Black Lung Clinics grantees. In 2020, HRSA funded the establishment of the  Black Lung Data & Resource Center (BLDRC). For more information on the BLDRC, please click here. 

The BLCOE supports the needs of HRSA Black Lung Clinics Program grantees with updates and resources for healthcare professionals on the changing patterns and severity of Coal Mine Dust Lung Disease. Coal Mine Dust Lung Disease puts miners at risk for increased morbidity and mortality due to undiagnosed and/or undertreated respiratory disease.

The goal of the BLCOE remains to provide the highest level of medical expertise and peer-reviewed literature in medical surveillance, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and medical legal services to providers, clinics, advocacy organizations and governmental agencies whose main goal is the care for coal miners. We are also dedicated to ensuring the availability of current resources and services for coal miners and their families.

Housed within the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health, the Policy, Practice and Prevention Research Center (P3RC) helps to build and use evidence to promote policy, systems, and environmental change; build capacity of our partners to identify and understand root causes of inequities; and build collective leadership to advance policies and practices that improve population health and equity.
Devangna “Guddi” Kapadia, Assistant Director at the P3RC, and Michael Yen, IT/AV/Distance Learning Coordinator at the P3RC, provide training and web support for the Black Lung Center of Excellence.