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Connecticut Study Highlights Coronavirus Racial Disparities

Bebeto Matthews
/
AP

Racial disparities in Connecticut have been amplified by coronavirus. That’s according to a new report from the non-profit Data Haven. 

Senior Research Assistant Kelly Davila says the report outlines all structures in someone’s life that affects their health, including: housing, education, food access and income. She says coronavirus hit Black and Latino communities so hard, she remembers she could hardly keep up with the data.

“As of today, X number of people have died, a week later that number had doubled. It kind of became a little bit terrifying at some point that all of these structures that we made suggestions about are actually, in real time, affecting populations across the state to the point where we can’t keep up with the magnitude of disparity.” 

Davila had planned to publish this report at the start of the year, but the virus heightened many racial disparities in real time.

She hopes this report will help policy makers and people seeking to understand systemic racism.

“So if we want to achieve health equity, we need to fix all of these things, or address all of these things, in concert with one another.”

Copyright 2020 WSHU

Cassandra Basler comes to WSHU by way of Columbia Journalism School in New York City. She recently graduated with a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, which means she has two years to report on an issue anywhere in the world (she's still figuring out where she'd like to go). She grew up just north of Detroit, Michigan, where she worked for the local public radio affiliate. She also wrote about her adventures sampling the city cuisines for the first guidebook to be published in three decades, Belle Isle to 8 Mile: An Insider's Guide to Detroit. Before that, Cassandra studied English, German and Urban Studies at University of Michigan. When she's not reporting on wealth and poverty, she's writing about food and family.
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