Connecticut: Remember to Vote for Health Equity
As we approach the November elections, keep in mind the power you hold in shaping the health of your community. Elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels play a key role in determining the policies that impact health care, housing, and education across the state. By voting, you can make sure that these policies promote health equity and support the well-being of all Connecticut residents.
BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF HOUSING AND HEALTH EQUITY
repost Building Healthy Communities: Exploring the Intersection of Housing & Health Equity By: Namandje Wali, Program Manager of Training and Outreach In Connecticut, as with many other communities across the […]
Countdown to Health Equity Week 2024!
Health Equity Solutions invites YOU to submit nominations for the Patricia Baker Award for Health Equity Advocacy. This award represents excellence in policy advocacy to advance systems-level change to promote health equity in Connecticut. Nominations must be submitted by completing this form.
No More Medical Debt: Closing Disparities in Hospital Billing through FAIR Act and SITE Act
Far too often, people are forced into debt because medical care has gotten so expensive. Medical debt is a significant concern in our state and country, forcing families to make budget cuts and pressuring people on fixed incomes. This is a devastating reality for millions of Americans. Our policymaking leaders need to zero in on the key drivers of high healthcare costs – like dishonest hospital billing practices – and eliminate them.
Community-led Solutions: Advancing Medicaid Reimbursement for Community Health Workers in Connecticut
After working together to pass and implement community health worker (CHW) certification in Connecticut, HES and our partners were eager to see more progress in expanding and solidifying this vital […]
Health Equity Week 2023
The first full week of April is now recognized in statute as Health Equity Week! This week annually reaffirms Connecticut’s commitment to eliminating inequities in health and ensuring all residents […]
Community Health Worker Advocacy 2023
Community Health Workers (CHWs), go by many names: lay health workers, navigators, promotores, peer support workers, health educators, community health advocates, community health liaisons, and many other titles. All community health workers are public health outreach professionals with an in-depth understanding of the experiences, languages, cultures, and socioeconomic needs of the community they serve.
Community Conversations 2022 Workshops
Each year Health Equity Solutions hosts listening sessions to learn what health equity issues are most important to people in Connecticut. This year we are flipping the script.
Let’s talk about it!
CT’s Path to Equity: Inclusion
Inclusion describes systems, processes, and circumstances that are open to and respectful of the needs of diverse people.
Achieving health equity requires us to be intentional in creating meaningful exchanges of ideas among our health systems, policymakers, and the people most affected by inequities at every stage of policymaking—from identifying problems to evaluating the effects of policies and adapting to new information.
CT’s Path to Equity: Affordability
Affordability means people can access health care while still being able to cover routine expenses.
Approximately 18% of Connecticut households with working adults had health care costs that exceeded their ability to afford basic needs. Black, Latino, and low-income adults are disproportionately affected by higher health care costs and face more hurdles to meet basic needs.
CT’s Path to Equity: Opportunities to be Healthy
Opportunities to be healthy are the conditions and circumstances that enable us to prevent illness and injury and maintain the best possible quality of life when disease or accidents occur.
These are the daily context in which people live, work, play, pray, and age and that affect their health. Systemic racism and its consequences have led to Black, Indigenous, and other people of color being more likely to experience barriers to health, including higher-wage jobs, health insurance, education, healthy housing, clean air and water, and more.
CT’s Path to Equity: Anti-Racist Structures
Anti-racist structures acknowledge that all people and institutions exhibit racism at some point or some way and are committed to dismantling racism through policies and practices that advance racial justice and promote equity.
CT’s Path to Equity: Access
Access is the ability to receive high-quality health care that meets each person’s needs. This means culturally and linguistically appropriate care, having the technology to monitor health or participate in telehealth, a workforce large and diverse enough to address each person’s needs, and community-based supports that help people get and stay as healthy as possible.
Connecticut’s Path to Equity
The path to equity is woven through every aspect of our policies, structures, and processes. At the same time, the steps Connecticut can take to dismantle structural racism and achieve health equity are concrete, feasible, and within our reach.
CT’s Path to Equity: Race, Ethnicity, and Language Measurement
Race, ethnicity, and language (REL) measurement means collecting, analyzing, and using data to identify and address health disparities. Quality REL data is self-reported using detailed, standardized categories and selecting multiple categories.
Strengthening and Sustaining Primary Care
Health Equity Solutions recently submitted a public comment on the Office of Health Strategy’s Roadmap for Strengthening and Sustaining Primary Care. This Roadmap is intended to inform the development of the state’s primary care infrastructure through health reforms that expand the team of providers caring for patients, align how they coordinate, and improve the system’s capacity to address social drivers of health by expanding payment options beyond a fee-for-service model.
Advancing Federal Race, Ethnicity, Primary Language, and Disability (RELD) Data
Health Equity Solutions recently sent a letter to Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith and members of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force outlining recommendations for federal guidance and regulations to tackle existing barriers to race, ethnicity, primary language, and (REL) data collection.
Advancing Anti-Racism Among State Agencies
Health Equity Solutions recently sent a letter to the Commissioner of the Department of Social (DSS) Services outlining opportunities for DSS to leverage the ongoing policies and practices undertaken by Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families to address systemic racism.
American Rescue Plan Act Funding and Health Equity
As the state continues to work together to agree on proposals for allocating funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, we ask leadership to center health equity as the goal of this funding package.
The proposal for American Rescue Plan Act funding, which was passed out of the Appropriations Committee this week, reduces or removes several provisions of the initial proposal that would advance health equity.
Governor’s Proposed Federal Spending Plan
As we begin to gradually emerge from this pandemic, Health Equity Solutions aims to ensure that we learn from this past year and address the inequities it has so starkly highlighted. On Monday, Governor Lamont released a proposal for allocating federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act with provisions that show promise for moving Connecticut towards health equity in the coming years
Connecticut’s Path to Health Equity 2021
Newly increased focus on health equity and racial justice have led to the enthusiasm and also sometimes a sense that equity is too big and unwieldy of a goal. To launch Health Equity Week 2021, Health Equity Solutions created this “path to health equity” as a way to show that while this journey will be long and challenging, it is also feasible and clearly laid out for us.
It is Time to Declare Racism a Public Health Crisis in CT!
This past summer, we saw uprisings across the state calling for long-overdue racial justice. At that time, Health Equity Solutions began a petition demanding an intentional anti-racist focus in policymaking in the […]
Including Equity in Vaccine Distribution
Equity in COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution By: Kiara Tanta-Quidgeon, Policy and Advocacy Intern Governor Lamont recently announced that Connecticut will continue the age-based approach to COVID-19 vaccine eligibility with a focus on equity. […]
Declaring Racism a Public Health Crisis in Connecticut
Declaring Racism a Public Health Crisis in Connecticut The senseless deaths and violence against people of color at the hands of police and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on […]
Racism is a Public Health Crisis Related Articles 2020
We have compiled articles, podcasts, and tools highlighting racism is a public health crisis in Connecticut. Click here to download. Please reach out to Samantha Lew, slew@hesct.org to add to this list!
Daily Department of Public Health COVID-19 Reports
On March 21, 2020 the Department of Public Health produced publicly available data on COVID-19 in Connecticut. Daily reports can be found here, and include data on testing, hospitalizations, and deaths […]
Connecticut Strives for Primacy of Health Equity in Primary Care
This blog first appeared on Community Catalyst’s Health Policy Hub written by Eva Maria Stahl, with contributing guest bloggers Tekisha Dwan Everette of Health Equity Solutions and Karen Siegel of […]
It Is Time to Get REL!
Reports from the Center for Disease Control and the CT Department of Public Health have shown there are significant health disparities for people of color living in our state including […]