Blumenthal Urges Outreach to Communities of Color and Funding for Community Health Centers to Overcome Racial Health Disparities

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – At today’s Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked experts Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, Northwestern University Professor of Epidemiology and Vice Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, and Rodney B. Jones, Sr., East Liberty Health Center CEO, about needed steps to engage communities of color, which historically lacked trust in the health care system, on a possible COVID-19 vaccine.

“In Connecticut, Black and Latinx residents are more than three times as likely to have tested positive for COVID-19 as white people and Black residents are more than two and a half times as likely to have died from the disease as white people. Latinx people are more than one and a half times as likely. And just one last statistic, almost 60-70% of all or deaths from this insidious disease have occurred in nursing homes, so if you are older and you are Black or Latinx, this disease has a target on your back. Not one that you have created, but one that has resulted from lack of proper health care, housing, maybe education. And that is a kind of injustice that this nation must overcome,” stated Blumenthal during the hearing.

Blumenthal went on to stress the importance of Federally Qualified Health Centers in engaging and instilling trust in communities of color.

“In Connecticut, we have seventeen [Federally Qualified Health Centers] and the numbers are almost the same – nearly 75% of Connecticut community health center patients are from racial or ethnic minorities. The HEROES Act was passed by the House not that long ago with an additional $7.6 billion in emergency funding for community health centers,” continued Blumenthal.

Video of Blumenthal’s questioning is available here.

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