Our work is centered in the fight for justice – health, racial, economic and social.
We focus our health care advocacy in four key areas: affordability, access, accountability, and anti-racism/equity.
We center our call to action in the stories of real people who struggle to get the care they need and can afford. The stories we hear are powerful reminders of the shortcomings in our systems – not just in health care, but across the board in so many parts of our lives. These stories also provide hope and fuel for action and change.
We listen to our grassroots partners and community leaders to learn what they need and want. What is their vision of justice?
We work in coalitions that share our values to build power for health and other forms of justice.
If you are interested in talking about our policy work, please contact Rosana Ferraro, Program Lead for Health Justice Policy Advocacy at: [email protected]
What we do:
“We are activists and philanthropists.” Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut provides grants to support building people power for health justice including three main arms: Grantmaking, Policy Advocacy work that is lead by our Building Power Partners, and other program work in support of healing, sharing knowledge and building people power for health justice.
After the COVID-19 pandemic and the brutal murder of George Floyd, we have supported since December 2022 system wide change ( structural and policy changes) for Health Justice led by groups of people who are directly negatively impacted by our society’s systems. We support our organizing partners to focus on what matters most to them within the social drivers of health and access to health care.
Why organizing led by groups of people most impacted?
Many of the gifts our society offers to individuals, families, and communities came from the organized and strategic fight or policy advocacy efforts led by an organized group of people whose lives were harmed by the existence or the lack of certain rules or laws in our Country. Folks advocated for change and honored our democracy through peaceful protests, testifying in City or Town halls and all the way to our State and our Country’s capital.
Such gifts that we take for granted include laws that :
- Limit child labor to prevent irreparable physical harm to our children and encourage literacy and education for a potentially fruitful future;
- Being able to go out and sit down for a meal, in the movie theater, or sit in a classroom and not being forced to breathe in cancer-causing second-hand smoke….Remember when people smoked in classrooms, inside an airplane, or movie theatre?
- Women and Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Asian Americans who are US citizens who are 18 years or older gained the right to vote.
- In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed a comprehensive US immigration reform bill into law allowing 2.9 million immigrant people who met certain requirements to gain a pathway to citizenship and integration into society; allowing people to remove themselves from abusive labor or domestic relationships and protect families from having their children stolen from them by sex traffickers and government agents alike.
- Adults gained the right to love and marry adults of any gender as recently as 2015 in any of the 50 States.
In Connecticut, Black, Brown, Indigenous and other people of color ( BIPOC) face greater risks to their health, as stated in the very detailed and sobering report by Data Haven published 2023 Health Equity Report.
The COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted “longstanding health inequities in the US” including within Connecticut. “African Americans (and Latinos) were dying from COVID-19 at higher rates than whites, even though they make up a smaller percentage of the population. Nancy Kreiger, a professor of social epidemiology at Harvard’s School of Public Health and other experts “noted how the pandemic highlighted the different conditions in which we live because of social structures that are inequitable… By pulling the thread, it’s revealing patterns that have long been known in public health.”
We need to invest TODAY in people who are negatively affected by the social structures that are inequitable to be the leaders of systemic change to save as many lives as possible NOW; and for a kinder and more just future for all. Our currently shakey Democracy also depends on it.
What is Health Justice?
Health Justice focuses on building people power of those most impacted to change the systems that cause harm to their health and well-being towards achieving health equity.
What is Health Equity?
Focuses on the prevention of harm, removing obstacles to health and the redistribution of benefits within the existing system for all people to reach the highest level of health. (CT Health Foundation)
Why does Universal focus on Health Justice?
Health Justice focuses on building people power of those most impacted to change the systems that cause harm to their health and well-being towards achieving health equity.
“If a community does not have resources, it can not be healthy.” Linda Villarosa quoting Dr. Harold Freedman’s research to understand racial disparities in healthcare at the CT Health Foundation's 25th Anniversary convening in 2024.
The World Health Organization states that the social determinants of health account for 30% to 55% of health outcomes. Social determinants include:
- Healthcare: What is your level of access to care? What is the quality of your care?
- Education: What is your education level? What is your access to information? (Including Language, early childhood education )
- Social and community life: What is your level of involvement and acceptance in your community? Do you face discrimination because of your status?
- Economic stability: What are your financial resources? Do you have employment, housing, and access to food?
- Neighborhood: Does where you live affect your health, safety, and access to vital resources?
What is the data that connects health justice and racial justice?
From COVID-19 pandemic highlights longstanding health inequities in U.S.:
“Krieger listed a variety of factors that put people of color at greater risk from the virus. They are more likely to live in crowded conditions, to work in service jobs that put them in close proximity to others, to have to go to work because they can’t afford to miss it, to take public transportation, and to lack access to protective gear at work. They are also more likely to have pre-existing health conditions that increase the risk from COVID-19, and to lack access to health care and health insurance. And they may live in areas with high levels of air pollution, which, according to a recent Harvard Chan School study, is linked with increased risk of death from COVID-19.”
From Data Haven’s Health Equity in Connecticut 2023 report:
“Health risks are medical, environmental, or behavioral complications that contribute to other health concerns. These are often preventable. Asthma, for example, can be environmentally induced by pollutants, contaminants, or poor housing conditions. Once asthma develops, respiratory issues like bronchitis and even minor issues such as allergies can become more severe, requiring more intensive healthcare. In Connecticut, residents in areas with older housing stock, and especially people of color in those areas, are more likely to be exposed to conditions that result in developing asthma. Adults in Hartford are nearly twice as likely as adults in suburban areas to say they currently have asthma. As the global climate changes, and with it local weather patterns, rates of asthma are likely to remain high.”
”Finally, depression and anxiety create risks for developing other health conditions. These factors have been linked to lower immune response, cardiovascular episodes like stroke and heart attack, diabetes, asthma, and risk for suicide, especially gun-related suicide. It is normal to occasionally feel depressed or anxious. But chronically experiencing these feelings can indicate underlying health issues that may be caused by unresolved trauma, discrimination, or environmental quality, or the prolonged stress that accompanies unemployment, unstable housing, or financial insecurity. Statewide, low-income adults report feeling chronically depressed at five times the rate of high-income adults; Black and Latino adults report chronic depressive symptoms at more than 1.3 times the rate of white adults; and adults under 35 at twice the rate of adults 65 and older. Nearly one in five adults in Hartford reported feeling depressed or anxious, double the rate of adults living in rural areas of Connecticut….
Fetal mortality is more than twice as high—and infant mortality three times as high—for Black babies than white babies in Connecticut….
In 2022, 15 percent of adults in Connecticut reported being afraid of gun violence, but these values ranged from 5 percent in suburban areas to 42 percent in the state’s large cities…. Gun-related deaths are now the top cause of death among children in the United States, eclipsing motor vehicle crashes and pediatric cancers.The same holds true in Connecticut. Experiencing gun-related trauma, including being present at a shooting, or having a family member hurt by a firearm, is linked with a higher likelihood of complications from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially among children. One study found that teens who lived within a few blocks of the site of a shooting were more likely to utilize an emergency department for a mental health-related reason. Another found a connection between the proximity of a police-involved shooting and diminished educational outcomes among high school students of color in what is believed to be a posttraumatic response to police brutality.
Recent analysis has discovered through linked administrative datasets that wealthy Black women have worse birth outcomes than poor white women. This means that money and access to medical care alone are not the only drivers of healthy birth outcomes; race also plays a critical role. Reasons for this include entrenched legacies of racism present in factors ranging from neighborhood development, employment, and environmental determinants to the stress of ongoing and generational racism….
Scholars have shown that the legacies of racist housing practices have led to higher shares of Black residents living in neighborhoods where there is concentrated poverty, lower formal educational attainment among adults, and high unemployment rates. These neighborhoods also see higher rates of gun violence. The racist outcomes of redlining and disinvestment are interrelated with high rates of gun related mortality….
Across issues ranging from food insecurity to discrimination, risks from asthma to depression, and poor birth outcomes to premature and elevated mortality, Black populations fare measurably worse than white populations in Connecticut. Low income, Latino, and urban populations also experience significant disadvantages compared to white populations in the state, at different magnitudes….
Nearly all of the health barriers, risks, and outcomes discussed in this report are preventable, but some prevention strategies will take more work than others. The effects of racism and discrimination will not be solved overnight or with any single policy, but access to healthcare, housing, healthy foods, and recreational opportunities, along with gun reform, can and should be public health priorities. Inaction will lead only to the continuation or worsening of the existing gaps in health and well-being. The process will not be easy, but it is not too late to start”