Health Equity and Access Project

After reporting for weeks that Connecticut Hispanics are only half as likely to die from COVID-19 as non-Hispanic whites, state officials now say that Hispanics here are substantially more likely to die from the disease.

State officials were also reporting that the state’s black population was only 26% more likely than whites to die from a coronavirus infection when in fact their likelihood of death is 2.5 times as high.  The death rate for Hispanics is now calculated at 67% higher than non-Hispanic whites.

Why the change? And why were they getting it wrong?

The federal health care law was known as Obamacare. And Republicans, including President Trump, campaigned on repealing it.  

The rate of people without health insurance in rural Connecticut has gone down dramatically since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

That’s the takeaway message from a new report on health insurance out of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Edwin Park, a research professor at the center, said the key to the drop is the state’s expansion of Medicaid to include more people.

Connecticut is receiving a $10 million grant that will be used to increase access to care for people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.

Health care advocates say Connecticut needs to do a better job examining just how a person’s race can affect their health and their recovery from disease.

Congress blew past a September 30 deadline to reauthorize federal funding for about 1,200 community health centers nationwide. The funding lapse is already having an impact in Connecticut.

A lot more attention has been paid in recent years to addressing the needs of kids with severe developmental delays and diagnoses like autism. But a new study finds that we're not offering the best help to kids who may have more moderate needs.

People displaced by the disaster in Puerto Rico face multiple problems - finding housing, getting kids settled in schools, adjusting to a new climate. And all of those can be intensified if they’re also dealing with health issues.

Connecticut’s recently passed biennial budget made drastic changes to health care provisions for some state residents. One of the ways lawmakers saved money was by cutting back Medicaid eligibility. 

People living in Connecticut’s rural areas are dying at a higher rate than the state average. New data just released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in the 68 towns designated as rural, death rates from major killers, such as cancer and heart disease, are all higher. 

Health insurance for thousands of children in Connecticut could soon disappear.

That’s because Congress failed to meet a September 30th deadline to renew funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.

The mass shooting in Las Vegas is dominating the media news cycle. Since the tragedy Sunday night, TV news and social media have displayed a continuous stream of images and video of the chaotic scene at the Highway 91 Harvest Festival that left at least 59 dead.

The rate of infants dying suddenly and unexpectedly has dropped in recent years, but data show that racial disparities persist.

Medicaid has become an increasingly important source of health insurance coverage for children in the United States. That’s especially true for children living in small towns and rural areas, according to a new report.

A genetic test that helps doctors determine how best to treat breast cancer -- and whether chemotherapy is likely to help -- is significantly more likely to be administered to white women than blacks or Hispanics, a Yale study has found.

A bipartisan group of legislators and advocates are urging passage of a bill that would allow all pregnant women in Connecticut access to insurance coverage for pre- and post-natal care.