(LOB= Legislative Office Building)

Thank you for your continued advocacy & efforts! EVERY issue on our 2021 policy agenda has passed out of committee! On April 21, the Appropriations Committee released a draft budget that, among many other things, increases HUSKY eligibility for parents. On April 26, the Governor released a draft plan for the distribution of federal funding from the most recent COVID-19 legislation. This plan includes creating a new community health worker program with plans for sustainability beyond the recovery period, expanding access to broadband, expanding the Office of Health Equity in the Department of Public Health, and including health and human services in a one-stop website for state-run services.

HES testimony is here. Interested in a specific policy? See our recent policy update. Have a question? Please reach out. We are so grateful for all of your hard work on the many legislative priorities related to health equity.

Over 40 organizations and nearly 100 CT residents signed this letter urging Connecticut’s General Assembly to declare racism a public health crisis and embed anti-racism in our state’s governance.

Thanks to those of you who joined HES and our partners for Connecticut's Health Equity Week the week of April 5-10. Special thanks to the partners who led events, shared stories, and made the week a success!

• Recordings of events hosted by HES and our partners are here and on social media. Check out #HEW2021 to catch up! Events focused on 1) CT’s path to health equity; 2) race, ethnicity, and language data collection; 3) vaccine information; and 4) expanding HUSKY programs & the COVID vaccine.
• Health Equity Solutions released a “path to health equity” to show that there are clear and achievable policy steps towards health equity; please take a look and let us know what you think
• If you would like your town to declare racism a public health crisis, materials are available here, or reach out for support.
• The CT Office of Health Strategy has released a Draft Consent Policy Recommendation to the Statewide Health Information Exchange (Health Information Alliance, Inc., “HIA”) and invites public comment. Comments can be submitted by email to Tina.Kumar@ct.gov with ‘HIE Consent Policy Comment” in the subject line. The deadline to submit comments is May 26, 2021, by 5:00 pm.

This month, HES kicks off the quarter with a new book, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts. If you are not quite ready to start a full book, try Dorothy Roberts’s Ted Talk: The problem with race-based medicine.