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Even though Connecticut is a blue state with a Democratically controlled house, senate and governor, it  is just one of seven states in the nation does not allow universal absentee voting prior to election day. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged during the primary season, the Connecticut legislature voted to permit Connecticut residents to cast absentee ballots. Who would have thought that it would take a pandemic during a presidential election year to expand access to voting in Connecticut and allow more residents to vote than ever before? In the past few years, absentee and mail-in voting has ...

The Zoning Atlas developed by Desegregate Connecticut identifies the extent to which communities limit housing choices. President Barack Obama once said, “a child’s course in life should be determined not by the zip code she’s born in, but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.”  Yet we know where a child is born, and grows up, affects their future education, finances, and health. However, changing one’s zip code is not always easy.  From the availability of affordable housing to systemic policies hindering mobility, there are a myriad of factors limiting f...

Speak up for mental health transparency A child comes into the emergency department, gasping for air. She is immediately seen by an emergency doctor, diagnosed with an asthma attack, and started on treatment. Knowing that she will need a hospital admission, her doctor calls her insurance company to try to convince them that the admission is medically necessary. If the insurance company disagrees, they will deny her hospital care and her family will have no choice but to take her home, untreated. Margaret Blondal MD After 40 minutes on the phone, the emergency room doctor finally gets through ...

Right to counsel is both a housing and public health intervention The COVID 19 pandemic exposed and clarified the significance of housing for health and well-being. Recognition that housing instability and homelessness contributed to the spread of COVID 19 spurred urgent and creative action to address symptoms of a longstanding affordable housing crisis including the risk of eviction from rental housing. As one example, here in Connecticut, a statewide moratorium on evictions helped keep renters housed when pandemic related wage loss caused them to fall behind on rent. Similarly, the CDC’...

The CT Senate should act now to remove non-medical vaccine exemptions. Last week, the Connecticut House of Representatives advanced legislation to eliminate non-medical exemptions from school-entry immunizations, a timely and important step towards protecting our children and families from vaccine-preventable illnesses. The Senate should move decisively to do the same. Our professional society, the American College of Physicians (ACP), established national policy in 2015 recommending that vaccine medical exemptions be the only type allowed under state laws. High immunization rates are necessa...