In 1998, the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Office of Women’s Health (OWH) received funding from the Illinois General Assembly to support grants to enable communities to begin or to enhance women’s health programming efforts in the areas of outreach, health promotion and education. OWH recognizes the need to educate the public about the benefits of healthy lifestyles and that positive behavioral modification can help improve and prevent a variety of chronic conditions. Consequently, grant priorities are cardiovascular disease, menopause, osteoporosis and comprehensive women's health.

The Office of Women’s Health first launched model grant programs during the fiscal year 2002 grant cycle. These models were gleaned from women’s health programming that was implemented by earlier Women’s Health Initiative and Osteoporosis Prevention and Awareness grantees. These models are meant to showcase the projects impacting women’s health in Illinois. More importantly, these projects will allow the OWH to obtain and analyze cumulative data on women’s health issues in order to determine which interventions are most effective.

Applications and grant cycle information can be obtained by contacting the Illinois Department of Public Health, Office of Women’s Health, at 217-524-6088.

In fiscal year 2007, OWH granted more than $1.4 million to local health department's and community based organizations around the state. Approximately $900,500 funded agencies that were completing the second or third year of a continuing grant award. The remaining $522,000 funded agencies to conduct the model programs described above.