There’s a “heightened sense of wellbeing, a feeling of connectedness,” he said of spending time outside at the nearly 693-acre park in Hartford’s North End. “There are portions of the park that you can visit that completely make you feel like you’re in another place, in another world. Not only in another city, but in a completely different ecosystem.”
Virgo is the founder and executive director of Keney Park Sustainability Project and is dedicated to helping others have similar experiences through the project’s Urban Ecology Wellness Center at Keney Park initiative. The wellness center, housed at the 693-acre park in Hartford’s North End, was formed to connect North End community members to the healing power of nature through a variety of programs, including forest and horticulture therapy, workshops in urban forestry and farming and group hikes. Other programs use the sustainability project’s facilities, which include five greenhouses and are home to a variety of animals, including bees, goats and chickens.
As part of his efforts to connect people with nature, Virgo has begun working closely with Dr. Della Corcoran, a West Hartford pediatrician and founder of OutdoorRX CT. Corcoran has witnessed firsthand in her practice what she already knows from medical literature: when people spend time in nature, good things happen.
“Depression scores go down. If you have kids that can get outside and run around a little bit before school, their attention levels are higher. They have fewer symptoms of ADHD. Access to meaningful green space, or even sometimes just pictures of nature, lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and improves diabetes. The health benefits are obvious and also evidence-based.”
— Dr. Della Corcoran
For instance, a 2019 study found that a $100 increase in parks and recreation spending was associated with a decrease in mortality of 3.9 to 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people. Other research suggests additional benefits for outdoor exercise over indoor exercise.
In theory, access to nature for all would be easy in Connecticut, where public parks and forests are abundant. Still, in reality, historic inequities around this access persist, and city greenspaces could be utilized more.
Desegregating Nature
According to Connecticut’s 2020 Forest Action Plan, more than 60% of the state is forested, and the state’s cities have the most urban tree cover in the nation. In Hartford, 99% of residents live within a 10-minute walk to a quality park, according to the Trust for Public Land. In New Haven, that number is 96% of residents, while in Bridgeport, it drops to just 73% percent, but that’s still well above the national average of 55%. Beyond city parks, there are 110 state parks and 32 state forests in Connecticut.
In recent years, the state has launched various programs and initiatives to promote access to the outdoors. For example, the state’s Passport to the Parks, program provides any vehicle registered in Connecticut free entrance to parks year-round. In addition, ParkConneCT launched last summer, providing free bus fare to select state parks. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s No Child Left Inside® initiative promotes these types of programs and other outdoor initiatives.
Programs designed to help people get to parks are important because, research shows, proximity to green spaces alone can’t ensure equitable access to nature for people of color.
“In many areas, people of color are less likely to use greenspace amenities even when they have geographic access,” Don Rakow of Cornell University, and Laura Brown, executive director of New Haven’s City Plan Department, wrote in a report titled Anti-Racism in the Outdoors.
“These inequities are the result of complex social and economic factors that include explicit racism and segregation. As an example, Central Park, the first urban park in America, was envisioned and largely driven by powerful white businessmen for the benefit of white elites, and its construction involved eviction of a community of African American and immigrant residents.”
Pediatric APRN Amanda Elizabeth DeCew still sees the impact of some of these policies in New Haven. She works at the Fair Haven Community Health Care, and the majority of her patients are low-income and uninsured. “Most of the kids that I see spend a lot of their time indoors,” she said. “Most Americans spend a lot of their time indoors, about 90% of it, but I would say the children that I see spend more time indoors than children in the suburbs and the surrounding areas of New Haven.”
APRN Amanda DeCew
DeCew added, “We haven’t done a study, but from my own experience, and from the experience when talking to other providers about it, what patients report is that safety is a barrier,” DeCew said. “I think that people don’t want to take their children to the park if there are, quote-unquote, questionable people in the park they don’t feel comfortable with.”
Another barrier is time constraints due to work schedules. DeCew is working to understand these barriers and help overcome them for her patients and others by participating in collaborative community efforts. For instance, she is working with Yale Office of Sustainability’s New Haven Nature & Health Initiative, which brings together health care workers and others in the community to share knowledge about engaging New Haven residents in ways they can improve their health through experiences in nature.
A Prescription For Nature And Other Efforts
Corcoran and DeCew offer their respective patients nature prescriptions, which include handwritten prescriptions and follow-up texts to remind people to get outside. “It’s very similar to prescribing any other prescription,” DeCew said of the process.
Corcoran hopes to encourage more health care providers to give patients these types of prescriptions and have conversations with them about spending time outside.
“I do that with every newborn that comes into my office,” Corcoran said. “I look at the parents, and I say, ‘Look, we’re big fans of fresh air. Take this baby outside. Don’t go out in blizzards, don’t go out if there are wind chill advisories, but you know what, dress this baby appropriately for the weather; go outside. Take a walk, be out in nature, be outdoors.'”
If more health care providers started having these conversations, it would be beneficial to their patients and could influence the larger conversation, Corcoran said.
“The more you educate providers and talk about getting people outside, the more likely you are to have people at the state and the insurance payer level pay attention to the importance of that green space and developing that green space,” Corcoran said. “Maybe your doctor’s prescription to go for a hike, you can use to get on the bus and go to Auerfarm, which is in Bloomfield, or to Winding Trails out in Farmington or to the MDC Reservoir in West Hartford.”
Bringing Nature To The City And People To Nature
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Virgo feeds the goats at the Keney Park Sustainability Project, Hartford.
Another way to increase access to nature for those who live in cities is to plant more trees and create more green spaces. New Haven Urban Resources Initiative (URI), a community not-for-profit affiliated with the Yale School of the Environment, has helped plant more than 10,000 trees with community partners since 1995.
Trees can help cool cities and reduce asthma risk, said Colleen Murphy-Dunning, program director of the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology/Urban Resources and the New Haven Urban Resources Initiative.
“There’s a term called biophilia. It basically said humans have an innate need for nature,” Murphy-Dunning said. “There’s been studies of if you have trees at the hospital, it can reduce people’s hospital stay.”
Planting trees and other beautification efforts can also help encourage residents to engage with parks, DeCew said.
“I think there’s certainly a lot of brownfields that we could turn into green fields and a lot of neighborhoods in New Haven,” she said. “And we know from studies that just greening a vacant lot can reduce depression for residents who live around that area.”
Healing Nature
At Keney Park, Virgo continues looking for new ways to get more community members into the park. He is working with Corcoran to develop a nature passport with different requirements depending on the season and let the younger generation use their phones as they discover and interact with nature.
In the meantime, he wants to make one thing clear. “People like to say that the park is not being utilized, which is incorrect,” he said. “There’s a community of folks that use this park every single day, families, children and adults, all demographics. So, it all depends on your perspective. Do we want to see more people utilizing it? Absolutely.”
As for Virgo’s favorite part of the park, it’s a section called 10 Mile Woods. Some years back, the roads running through it were closed due to the city’s lack of funds to maintain them. “In that kind of sectioning it off and blocking off the roads through it, it has actually been preserved,” he said. “So, it’s very fascinating to watch nature kind of reclaim roads and reclaim signs and kind of just heal itself from human interaction.”
Healing is, after all, what nature does.
Below are some nature resources:
Urban Ecology Wellness Center at Keney Park
New Haven Nature & Health Initiative
Trust for Public Land tool the percentage of residents in your town or city with easy access to a quality park
OutdoorRX CT’s Facebook and Instagram
Connecticut’s No Child Left Inside Initiative®
Connecticut’s 2020 Forest Action Plan
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Dunn’s mother, Maria Cotto, has long had severe asthma. Dunn inherited the condition, though she has mostly grown out of it as an adult. Now, Dunn’s 12-year-old son also has severe asthma.
“People kind of shrug it off as not that big of a deal,” said Dunn, who lives with her family in East Harford. “But I see what it’s done to my mother, and I see what it’s doing to my son, and what it has done to me.”
In Connecticut, 10.6% of children and 10.5% of adults have asthma, according to state data from 2019. According to DataHaven’s 2021 Community Wellbeing survey, 12% of adults have asthma.
Asthma does not impact all people equally.
“In the state of Connecticut, similarly to other states in the country, this condition disproportionately affects minority populations, including African Americans and Hispanics,” said Dr. Mario Perez, an assistant professor of medicine at UConn Health who studies asthma disparities and who Cotto sees for her asthma.
DataHaven’s survey found that 11% of white, 13% of Black, and 21% of Latino adults have asthma.
Economics also seems to play a role. Only 6% of adults in wealthy towns have asthma, while 16% of adults in cities like New Haven, Waterbury, Hartford and Bridgeport have the condition. In addition, 19% of adults earning less than $30,000 per year have asthma, compared to only 9% of those earning $100,000 per year.
“Residents in city centers are typically three to four times more likely to visit the emergency room with an asthma diagnosis than residents of outer suburban areas,” said Mark Abraham, executive director, DataHaven.
Air Quality And Geography
Connecticut has long been known as the “tailpipe of the nation” due to pollution that drifts in from other states. The 2022 State of the Air report from the American Lung Association gave every Connecticut county a poor grade for ozone levels. Fairfield, Middlesex, New Haven and New London all received a grade of F, while Tolland and Windham counties received D grades, and Hartford and Litchfield were each given a C.
“We know that environmental factors, particularly factors such as air pollution, can be associated and contribute to the disease and to disease flare,” Perez said.
A 2009 study of New Haven County children recruited from the Yale Asthma Care Center found an increased risk of symptoms and inhaler use in children with asthma who had exposure to traffic-related fine particles.
Additionally, some research has suggested a link between crime and asthma rates, which highlights the need for healthier communities overall. “Having the sense that your neighborhood is more secure actually decreases the rate of asthma and asthma exacerbations,” Perez says.
City Risk Factors And Glimmers Of Hope
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Robert Carmon shows off his basketball skills on the court off Glade Street near his West Haven home. His asthma has improved since he was diagnosed as an infant.
Robert Carmon, 11, who recently moved from New Haven to West Haven, developed asthma as an infant and was rushed to the hospital by his parents on a near-weekly basis during the early years of his life. Robert has improved since C-HIT first reported on him in 2018, but the condition still impacts his life. He’d like to play on the basketball team at school but can’t because he worries his asthma will flare up. “I can play pickup games as long as I don’t play too hard,” he said.
The frequency of his trips to the emergency room has decreased, but he still goes to the hospital about once every month or so, said Robert’s father, Chaz Carmon.
Stories such as Robert’s are common in Connecticut cities. In recent years they have ranked high in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s annual Asthma Capitals Report, but this year saw marked improvement. Hartford moved from 17th worst to 69th on the list, Bridgeport dropped to 85th, from 29th in 2021, while New Haven dropped from 5th to 90th.
“New Haven saw the biggest positive jump in rank of all the 100 metropolitan statistical areas that we analyze,” said Hannah Jaffee, a research analyst with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation.
However, people shouldn’t read too much into the improved rankings because this year’s list was created based on different data sources than previous years. For example, insurance claims were examined instead of the self-reported surveys used previously. In addition, more localized data was utilized rather than the county-level data used for the report in previous years.
Even still, Jaffee said, the three most populous counties have seen some improvement.
“When we do look at the county-level data that we previously used asthma prevalence rates for Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven county, they’ve all declined over the past five years,” she said. The death rate has also generally declined in those three counties over the past 20 years, Jaffee added.
Improving Asthma Rates
Proven strategies for reducing asthma incidence and severity include working to ensure all residents have access to culturally competent health care and improving indoor and outdoor air quality for those in cities.
“Asthma triggers can be mitigated through housing quality improvements like better air conditioning filters and education for families about what the triggers might be. If you’re running a gas stove for cooking, and you don’t have good ventilation, it’s producing a lot of air pollution inside.”
— Mark Abraham, executive director, DataHaven
The Connecticut Asthma Program is a state-run initiative attempting to decrease asthma disparities through partnerships with health care providers while providing education about the condition and expanding access to Connecticut’s asthma home visiting program. The state has also promoted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) EXHALE framework for asthma management.
Perez says that the most effective interventions will take place before a patient ever arrives in front of him. “I think we as a society have to address everything from the environmental pollution and climate that we’re creating as humans to improving education and access to health care, but also improving the socio-economic status of the population in general.”
In the meantime, some say more can be done individually to help those with asthma. For instance, while Robert’s current school allows him to keep his asthma pump on hand, he wasn’t allowed to do that in the past. “They always said you have to keep your bag in your locker,” he said. That could cause asthma attacks to get out of control before he could get to his pump.
His father adds that each school should have a nebulizer in the nurse’s office with staff trained to administer asthma medication. That way, a student “can be on the nebulizer at least until the parents get there,” Carmon says, and if the nebulizer helps enough, the student might be able to return to class.
Cotto says it’s important for medical staff to remember that each patient is different. Cotto horrifyingly learned this when she was given epinephrine during an emergency asthma flare. While the medication can be helpful to some patients, it nearly killed her.
“I’m allergic to it. When they administered it to me, my heart stopped,” she said. When this happened in 2013, she ended up in a coma for 22 days.
After Cotto’s coma, her asthma worsened, and she could not leave the house without oxygen for many years. In 2014 she began seeing Perez, who took the time to figure out her specific triggers and a treatment plan that worked for her. Though she struggles at times, her asthma is more under control than it has been in years.
“He tried a whole bunch of different medications and finally found one that works for me,” Cotto says. “I’m actually able to leave the house without oxygen.” That’s something she hasn’t done for nearly a decade.
You can find out more about asthma in Connecticut and asthma management in general by visiting the following sites:
- The Connecticut Asthma Program
- Connecticut’s asthma home visiting program
- The CDC’s EXHALE framework for asthma management
- The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s annual Asthma Capitals Report
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She also runs the school’s Instagram page. For her project at C-HIT’s multimedia journalism workshop, Trinity opted to try something different – video storytelling. She stopped by the Rainbow Center at the University of Connecticut and interviewed Christopher Richard, the center’s coordinator.
]]>The state will direct most of its efforts — and most of $30 million in federal money — toward its cities, whose children have borne the brunt of this epidemic. In announcing the allocation recently, Gov. Ned Lamont pointed to lead’s “catastrophic” effects on children’s health and development, noting that lead poisoning is “a problem that impacts most deeply minority and disadvantaged communities of our state.”
Nearly half of the 1,024 children reported as lead poisoned in 2020 lived in New Haven, Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford, or other cities, according to state Department of Public Health numbers.
DPH Photo.
“The money is necessary to address a problem that is a wrong of the past,” said Manisha Juthani, MD, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health. “We need to do better in the state of Connecticut.”
The more enduring thrust of the state’s new actions, however, is the strengthening of its outdated lead laws, starting in 2023. The changes will increase early interventions by:
• Gradually lowering the blood lead levels that trigger parental notifications.
• Lowering the blood lead counts requiring home inspections.
• Requiring more frequent testing of children who live in areas where lead exposure is more common.
Under current law, parental notifications aren’t required unless a child’s blood lead level is 5 micrograms per deciliter or higher. Starting Jan. 1, 2023, the trigger for parental notifications will be 3.5 micrograms, the standard adopted by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If the state had used the CDC’s new measurement of 3.5 micrograms in 2020, the number of Connecticut children considered lead poisoned would triple to 3,000.
More significantly, perhaps, is that by Jan. 1, 2025, investigations into where and how a child has been poisoned will drop from the current trigger of 20 micrograms per deciliter to 5 micrograms per deciliter.
‘It’s A Start’
The $30 million for lead poisoning relief is from the state’s share of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Biden administration’s COVID-19-relief legislation.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD, said the funds will be spent largely on remediating housing found to be the source of a child’s poisoning.
Abating a single home or apartment can cost between $12,000 and $15,000, Juthani said, adding that the ARPA money will remediate more than 1,500 housing units.
“It’s a start,” she said. “This may not remove the problem altogether, but the hope is that we can make a … dent.”
“We’re going to continue to explore funding opportunities that may be federal, that may be with other partners,” Juthani said. “This is always going to be an ongoing priority.”
DPH Photo
Lori Mathieu, DPH public health section chief, discusses the state’s lead abatement plans with Commissioner Juthani.
The federal government approved a bipartisan infrastructure measure in 2021, allocating $3 billion over the next five years to cover the costs of replacing lead-lined water pipes throughout the country.
Connecticut and the other states are conducting inventories to identify pipes that need to be replaced. “Right now, we have about 18,000 on a list of possible lead service lines,” said Lori Mathieu, DPH public health section chief.
Leaded water pipes cause about 20% of all lead poisoning cases in the state; nearly every other case is linked to leaded paint.
Lead Paint In Housing
Until it was banned in 1978, for more than a half-century, lead was added to house paint to boost its durability. Even painted over, it remains on the walls of older apartment buildings and homes. As the paint inevitably deteriorates, leaded chips and paint dust can be ingested by crawling babies and toddlers who, during this peak period of brain development, typically explore their new worlds using hand-to-mouth activities.
Once in the bloodstream, the heavy metal can cause permanent cognitive problems, including a measurable loss in IQ points, hearing loss, developmental delays, learning disabilities and hyperactivity.
For years, Connecticut law lagged behind the scientific findings that ever-smaller amounts of lead can cause irreversible harm to young children.
In testimony before the Public Health Committee in March, doctor after doctor described the dire and discriminatory landscape of lead poisoning.
“As a pediatrician who cares for children with lead toxicity, I have seen firsthand the devastating and long-term health effects that lead poisoning has on the physical and mental health of young children, in particular those under the age of 6.”
— Erin Nozetz, MD, chair of the New Haven Lead Task Force
“Right now, in Connecticut,” Nozetz said, “the risk of a child being poisoned and the response to that poisoning depends on the town that the child lives in. We also know that children from underrepresented minority populations are disproportionately affected by lead toxicity. I don’t know about you, but this infuriates me.”
Waterbury’s Efforts
Connecticut cities have some of the oldest housing in the country. Larger cities may each have well over 10,000 housing units built before lead paint was outlawed.
Waterbury has more than 14,500 such units, and the city consistently has some of the highest numbers of lead-poisoned children in the state, state DPH reports show.
The Brass City reported 81 lead-poisoned children under 6 in 2020, which is certainly an undercount because of the pandemic, said Public Health Director Aisling McGuckin. In 2018, the year before COVID-19 hit, Waterbury reported twice as many lead-poisoned children.
“Waterbury is predominantly a renter city,” McGuckin said. Healthy Homes, the federal program created to eliminate housing-related environmental hazards, has done a lot of work in the city, she said. But much work remains, as well as challenges, she said.
“Landlords can be hard to contact” if an apartment unit or home needs lead remediation, McGuckin said, so “families don’t have a lot of control.”
And there are the logistics involved in the numbers of children and families needing help.
In testimony urging passage of the lead legislation, McGuckin wrote, “Currently in Waterbury, we have two staff managing the lead case management work. In FY 2021, we had over 1,000 cases that under the proposed blood lead level limits would have provoked an investigation and follow-up.”
A Modernized System
New Haven was embroiled in a class-action lawsuit for over two years after the city quietly changed its criteria for investigating lead-poisoned children. Two top health officials, including the department’s director, left. Last summer, a state judge agreed with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, which had brought the lawsuit, that New Haven was in the wrong.
When the new mayor, Justin Elicker, hired Bridgeport’s public health director to fix the embattled health department, Maritza Bond said she would involve a broad spectrum of the community in her efforts, including lawyers from New Haven Legal Assistance.
“We’re in an excellent position,” Bond said. “We’ve modernized systems. We have a lead dashboard. We’re tracking cases, updating them daily.” The department’s website contains maps highlighting areas with high numbers of lead cases.
The lead program is almost fully staffed. “In two years, we’ve gone from two inspectors to five, and we’re hiring for a sixth,” said Bond, who is running for secretary of the state.
And New Haven is inspecting the homes of lead-poisoned children whose blood lead levels are 5 micrograms per deciliter or higher. The state won’t require that until 2024.
To view the 2018 and 2019 childhood lead reports go here.
Scroll below to read the 2020 childhood lead poisoning report.
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Open in new tab Activists say one major category is missing when policymakers look at climate change preparation: the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) community. An environmental activist movement for LGBTQ+ people has been building in the New Haven area for a few years. Those involved in the movement say evidence is beginning to accumulate that makes a clear connection between environmental threats, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Their environmental vulnerability comes mainly from this group’s higher poverty rates. LGBTQ+ young people are homeless more often than the general population. Five years ago, the University of Chicago found that 40% of the homeless population was LGBTQ+ young people; 5 to 10% of the general youth population is from that group.
Adrian Huq
Adrian Huq became an environmental activist in New Haven while a high school student. Huq, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, first became interested in recycling, waste and energy. They soon co-founded the New Haven Climate Movement Youth Action Team. Huq is now a sophomore at Tufts University, majoring in applied environmental studies. They said the vulnerability of LGBTQ+ people can start with the rejection of their families, which often leads to other problems.
“For any folks trying to wrap their heads around this issue, it starts with poverty,” said Huq, who is 19 and living in the New Haven area while studying remotely at Tufts during the pandemic. “Anti-LGBTQ+ bias, mental health, substance abuse … homophobic bias or transphobic bias can get you kicked out, leading to homelessness.”
Huq said anyone struggling to understand the queer community should realize that they probably already know an LGBTQ+ person and don’t realize it. “Twenty-one percent of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ+. I am very proud to be part of Generation Z,” Huq said.
Leo Goldsmith, a recent graduate of the Yale School of the Environment, has authored two papers on LGBTQ+ people and climate change.
“Due to my intersectional identities as a queer and transgender individual who is also Latinx and my understanding of the immense amount of discrimination and disparities that occur within LGBTQ+ communities, especially those with intersecting marginalized identities,” Goldsmith said, “I wanted to explore the question: Are LGBTQ+ communities impacted by climate change similarly to how other marginalized groups are?”
These vulnerabilities have been there for decades but remain understudied, Goldsmith said. He is 28 and lives in Washington, D.C., where he works as a climate and health specialist at ICF, a firm that studies climate change and related effects for the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Goldsmith’s peer-reviewed study, “Queering Environmental Justice,” co-authored with Yale Professor Michelle Bell, said that researchers have yet to properly study the effect of environmental and health inequities on LGBTQ+ populations “despite higher rates of chronic physical and mental illnesses.” Goldsmith and Bell referred to a 2019 study that found 1 in 6 LGBTQ+ adults avoid going to the doctor because they expect discrimination.
Leo Goldsmith
In 2020, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency introduced its National Risk Index, which, in addition to rating communities’ vulnerabilities to natural hazards and weather events, also rates their social vulnerabilities to such events, there was no mention of the LGBTQ+ community. According to the formula, socially vulnerable people include females, Blacks, Latinx, Native Americans, those who live in mobile homes, those without cars, the unemployed, renters, and those in assisted living. Of the more than two dozen categories, none mention LGBTQ+.
The social vulnerability index can, for example, map where people might suffer health problems, lack easy access to a car in the chaos of an evacuation, or might suffer excessively from pollution, mold or heat.
“I’m glad you are looking into maps,” said Goldsmith. “I don’t know of a single one that includes SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity).”
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In New Haven, at the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ, the Rev. Jerry Streets and local clinical staff are offering substance use disorder treatment.
These alliances of frontline health care workers with trusted community leaders are addressing the alarming rise of substance use disorders by leveraging the cultural power of churches to reach people in need of help.
Overdose mortality rates have risen among all races in Connecticut over the past three years. But the rise has been particularly marked among the Black population. A rate in 2019 of 34 deaths per 100,000 people more than doubled to 70 deaths per 100,000 by 2021.
Figures from the Department of Public Health in Connecticut show that since 2019, more than 80% of overdose deaths have involved fentanyl. The influx of that drug has significantly affected communities of color, the data up to January 2022 show.
Alcohol use rose at the start of the pandemic across all populations. But among Black people, there was a sharper increase in binge drinking than among whites, according to a report by the Research Triangle Institute.
Seeking help for substance use disorder is rarely straightforward for anyone. Lancaster says the barriers are even higher for people of color, who are already marginalized and distrustful of official institutions.
Rev. Jack E. Madry said, “Drinking has gone up, self-medicating. People are doing whatever they can to try not to allow depression to overtake them.”
“Because the lens is already on you, we try not to make the lens bigger,” Lancaster said. “Sometimes that means staying with the circle of people that you trust.”
“We’re setting the table for someone to come to the table, come sit with us,” Lancaster said of the harm reduction training she’s coordinating.
Change The Dynamics
Lancaster has been in recovery for 17 years. She says that lived experience informs her work every day.
“When you receive individuals who have substance use disorder, you just have to accept people where they are and love them where they are,” Lancaster said.
She’s facilitating four weeks of training for 10 congregations around New London County. The program is open to communities of all faiths. Trainers from the National Harm Reduction Coalition will conduct the sessions.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Pastor Jack E. Madry, Jennifer Muggeo, deputy director at Ledge Light Health District and Margaret Lancaster, health program coordinator at Ledge Light, in the sanctuary of Madry Temple Church, New London.
Harm reduction means just that: It does offer the opportunity for someone with substance use disorder to get into treatment if they choose, but the first principle is that they stay safe and alive, even if they keep using. The program includes training in how to use naloxone and the distribution of fentanyl test strips so users can make sure the drugs they are taking are safe.
Trisha Rios is a recovery navigator with Alliance for Living, who is working with Ledge Light, engaging with people in the community on harm reduction and connecting them to treatment.
“This is absolutely huge,” she said of the faith-based initiative. “It’s going to be a game-changer. I’ve had experiences speaking at certain churches where I could go and tell my story, but I couldn’t bring my Narcan, you know?”
She said it will put the knowledge of harm reduction techniques in the hands of community leaders who can make a difference.
“It’ll change the dynamics,” Rios said. “Our churches do great with helping people. But if they have the knowledge of what comes with substance use or mental health, it’s going to be more than just coming to get a pair of socks.”
A Welcoming Space
Streets of New Haven uses the word “hospitality” to describe what they’re trying to achieve with the Dixwell church setting.
“You want it to be in an environment where people are comfortable and familiar,” he said.
“Substance abuse has hit the communities of people of color in a much more devastating way than some other communities,” said Annette Streets, Jerry’s wife. “We feel an urgency to do whatever we can to help address it.”
The program they’re hosting was designed by Dr. Ayana Jordan, now an associate professor of psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and the former director of Yale’s Social Justice and Health Equity Curriculum.
“One of the underlying factors of health care disparities is not that people don’t care about themselves, not that they don’t want to access health, but they are not treated in a way that makes them feel safe,” she said.
Dr. Ayana Jordan
“So much of what we’ve done in medicine for centuries has been dominated—at least in psychiatry—by white men, truly. And now we’re seeing the ramifications of that. Not because they inherently are bad, but it’s just a particular point of view. You don’t have access to varying points of view.”
She has already run a pilot program at the Dixwell Avenue church to demonstrate her idea. The study recruited people of color with primarily alcohol use problems to attend an eight-week program.
Recruits now in the study, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, are divided into a control group attending conventional treatment at a New Haven clinic run by the Midwestern Connecticut Council of Alcoholism (MCCA), with the remainder going into a treatment group at the church.
At the Dixwell church, participants complete a computer-based cognitive behavioral therapy program and take part in spiritually based sessions with church volunteers that include meditation, music and prayer.
Jordan said there’s a central question she’s trying to answer: how to address high drop-out rates of people of color from conventional treatment settings.
“Is there a culturally informed way to get them initiated into substance use treatment, but also keep them in treatment?” Jordan asks.
She’s found a staunch ally in Rev. Streets. As well as being a minister and professor at Yale Divinity School, he’s also a licensed clinical social worker and has taught at Columbia School of Social Work and the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University.
Rev. Streets said, “So, I had an appreciation and an understanding for what she was aiming to do.”
Annette Streets, who helps to deliver the pastoral aspect of the program, said some of the participants remember coming to the church as children.
“So, a person said, ‘I learned how to play drums right over there,’ you know, or ‘I took dance lessons right on that stage,’” Streets said. “It’s a welcoming space to people in the community, and they feel comfortable coming here.”
The small-group aspect spoke to Terry Ritter, 50, who said she’s been using alcohol and drugs since she was 13.
Terry Ritter
“I done been through so many drug programs. I’m on like my 10th, 12th drug program. There, I’m in group, and I can’t wait to leave to go get high. I didn’t think about that when I was in group here. My mind was clear. We formed a bond. That’s what it was. We formed a bond here.”
She said that only once before has she been successful in quitting completely. However, she now says she’s been clean for six months since she completed the program in September.
At MCCA’s New Haven location, participants in the control group receive more conventional treatment, overseen by Steve Palma.
“I still think for the most part at agencies across the state—even within our own—people fail to understand urban trauma and how much it factors into their continued addiction and their continued resistance,” he said.
“God knows, New Haven has a problem—talking about the public intoxication problem alone happening in these hot zones outside of package stores,” Palma said. “Sometimes, it’s right across the street from some of the churches.”
He said the majority of the population that his clinic serves is sent to treatment through the court system. That means that even if people attend sessions at MCCA, sometimes they don’t engage.
“It’s very hard for them not to see us as an extension of the legal system, even though we’re not,” Palma said. “They see treatment as punishment, not as recovery. So that’s what I love about the Black church project. They trust the church. They’re involved in the church.”
He’s excited about the possibility for learning that may come from the Dixwell study.
“It could change the way we service these clients completely,” he said. “Anything that’s evidence-based we would always use to inform our practices.”
For Jordan, changing the paradigm of treatment is a deeply personal goal.
“Being a woman, someone whose family has gone through many different iterations of addiction and mental illness, someone who’s Black in this country—all of those identities inform how I can not only engage with the patient, but my point of view,” she said.
The ultimate aim is to design a program that could be replicated and rolled out among churches across the country.
“It really is about life or death,” she said. “We’re seeing people die disproportionately because they don’t have access to people who understand their cultural values to take care of them. It’s unacceptable.”
If you identify as Black, are 18 or older, and would like to reduce your alcohol use, the Black Church Project is open to new study participants. Contact Lawanda Frederick at 203 641 1218. If you represent a church or community organization that would like more information, contact Traci Norman, traci.norman@yale.edu.
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Of the children tested that year, 649 were new cases.
As has been the case for many years, nearly half of the 1,024 lead-poisoned children lived in the state’s cities. New Haven had the highest number of lead-poisoned children, with 171, followed by Bridgeport, 148; Waterbury, 81; Hartford, 71; and Meriden, 35. These five cities had 49% of all lead-poisoned children in Connecticut in 2020.
Following suit, health disparities also continued. Black and Hispanic children continued to have higher rates of lead poisoning than non-Hispanic white children. Non-Hispanic Black children were 2.6 times more likely to be poisoned than white children, according to a report on the 2020 lead poisoning numbers on the state’s Open Data website.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
In October 2020, Charles Tate, a Bridgeport lead inspector, scanned the peeling side of a second-floor porch and found high levels of lead in the paint.
DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D., said Tuesday, “Protecting the youngest residents of our state from lead poisoning is a priority for DPH. And even though the numbers show that we are heading in the right direction, our work — including linking families to vital resources and building awareness in our inner cities — is far from done.”
But these latest numbers are based on a calculation that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the state have used since 2012. That calculation defines lead poisoning as 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood in a child’s body.
In October, the CDC lowered its definition of lead poisoning to 3.5 micrograms per deciliter.
If the state had used the CDC’s new measurement, or “reference value,” the number of Connecticut children considered lead poisoned would triple, to 3,000.
Even without the CDC’s adjustment, the pandemic complicates how to compare the numbers released to those from earlier years.
The DPH says in its report that “there was a sharp decline in screening” in April 2020, a month after the country started shutting down. A total of 61,700 children in Connecticut received lead blood tests in 2020, compared with 72,000 in 2019 and 73,000 in 2018. In addition, less than 60% of the state’s children under 3 years old were tested twice, as required by state law.
Although lead poisoning is notoriously linked to the water crisis in Flint, Mich., in 2014, lead poisoning in the Northeast and in other older parts of the country is usually the result of deteriorating interior and exterior house paint.
For close to a century, before the federal government finally banned its use in 1978, lead was added to paint to increase its durability. Although walls may be painted over, chips from the degrading paint can be leaded. Of particular concern is leaded paint dust, created as paint breaks down and is left behind when doors and windows of older homes are opened and shut.
Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to deteriorating paint because they are close to the ground and their breathing rates are higher than that of adults. And, as any parent knows, young children typically explore their new worlds, quite literally, through hand-to-mouth activities, turning a floor with leaded paint chips and leaded dust into dangerous terrain.
Exposure to the heavy metal, particularly during these early years when children’s brains are developing, can cause permanent cognitive damage, including an irreversible loss in IQ points. The toxin is also linked to speech and developmental delays, hearing loss and hyperactivity.
In addition to the 2020 numbers, DPH this week issued the numbers of lead-poisoned children in 2019 – 1,188; and 2018 — 1,333.
To view the 2018 and 2019 childhood lead reports go here.
Scroll below to read the 2020 childhood lead poisoning report.
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For social worker Jara Rijs, who works at Windham Center School, where more than half of its pre-K through fifth-grade students qualify for subsidized lunch, the job responsibilities bleed well beyond the job description, particularly since the pandemic hit.
As many in her school community face trauma either induced or exacerbated by the pandemic, Rijs says she considers every one of the estimated 250 students at her elementary school part of her caseload.
Beyond providing clinical support to students with individual education plans, in a given day, Rijs might also meet with a student struggling with a family loss or divorce, connect to a community health agency to check availability, lead a staff discussion on self-care, or even don the school’s “froggy” mascot costume—a symbol of the school’s “Froggy Four” character development program.
Fun and games aside, Rijs takes a serious tone when discussing the state of her student’s mental health.
“I’ve never seen so many young children talking about suicidality, feeling so drained and not having coping skills.”
— Jara Rijs
In Connecticut, as elsewhere across the country, the pandemic has exacerbated just how thin school-based social workers are stretched, with the demand for services swelling. The number of children needing behavioral health treatment at children’s hospitals has surged, resulting in long waits for inpatient and community-based care.
In January, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy declared a “national youth mental health crisis,” acknowledging the pandemic’s toll on children.
Connecticut’s ratio of social worker to student is 580 students to one social worker; the national professional standard recommends one social worker for every 250 students. The standard was developed before school-aged children endured months of isolation from the regular daily routine of school and the broad, adverse ramifications of the pandemic.
Earlier this month, a state task force led by the Department of Public Health identified 157 schools most in need of health care and mental health care services, with Waterbury, Bridgeport and New Haven at the top of the list. The task force report is designed to provide lawmakers with data to be used during the 2022 legislative session.
This week, Democratic lawmakers held a press conference highlighting their top priorities for the current legislative session and acknowledging the “mental health fallout” from the pandemic. Lawmakers plan to introduce several measures supporting children’s mental health, including increasing funding for school social workers.
Stephen A. Wanczyk-Karp, executive director of Connecticut’s chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, said: “I’ve been in this field since 1977. And I’ve never seen this level of interest for social work.”
Unable To Keep Up With Demand
Even in districts with seemingly adequate mental health resources, some schools are in crisis mode.
Carrie Rivera, assistant director of mental health services for New London Public Schools, describes the district’s efforts to ensure adequate student support: increasing the number of social workers at the secondary level, adding social-emotional programming to include a mindfulness program for pre-K through 8th grade, and maintaining a relationship with a community agency for psychiatric evaluations.
But the community’s needs are significant. Rivera says several families have lost family members—many of them parents or guardians—during the pandemic. The homeless student population has increased. Job loss, food security and financial insecurity are running high. Consequently, Rivera says, the district has seen a huge uptick in student depression, anxiety and related behavioral concerns.
“We have support staff within every single building. I don’t think it can ever be enough right now. Every day there’s a crisis.”
— Carrie Rivera
Windham’s Rijs knows the feeling. In a school year during which she’s never before seen students so mentally fragile, she says, the district eventually secured a one-year contract with a second social worker at her school.
“I hope they keep the second social work position. But I worry that it’s a position that could be eliminated,” Rijs said.
Obstacles To Hiring More School-Based Social Workers
Amid the enormous need for school-based social workers, whose many roles include “first responders” to student crises, leaders in the field say the job is often misunderstood. Wanczyk-Karp says that frequently they are perceived as interchangeable with other mental health professionals such as school psychologists, whose primary responsibilities include conducting student psychological and academic assessments and guiding students’ academic success.
A lack of recognition of social workers’ value to schools may be the cause of district-wide decisions like the one in 2015 by the Avon School District to eliminate its social workers and replace them with additional school psychologists, which met with public outcry from parents and former students. Catherine Lewis, an Avon parent and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut, was among those who denounced the district’s decision to eliminate social workers. “They do a lot of intangibles,” Lewis said. “They know the pulse of the school.”
Some social workers hope that the pandemic’s silver lining will mean greater recognition of their profession, and, subsequently, additional resources. “Legislation is talking about students’ health more than ever,” Rijs said. “We are finally in the limelight.”
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This year, the first report of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) occurred Sept. 23 in mosquitoes trapped in Voluntown, in southeastern Connecticut, as part of the state’s surveillance program. EEE is rare but kills one-third of those who catch it, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Two years ago, three out of four people who caught EEE in Stonington died. A mostly bird-biting mosquito, Culiseta melanura, which favors freshwater swamps, feeds on infected birds, which then pass EEE on to mosquitoes that bite birds and people.
Mosquitoes also spread two other serious diseases—West Nile virus and Jamestown Canyon virus—that cause neurological and flu-like symptoms. There are no vaccines, no surefire cures, and proper diagnoses are difficult.
Scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) trap mosquitoes weekly during the warm season. The traps capture a small percentage of all mosquitoes but give scientists an accurate picture of the highest levels of these illnesses.
“These are very serious illnesses,” said Philip Armstrong, a research scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and the head of the state’s mosquito testing program. “Those that survive infections suffer from lifelong disabilities, or they have really long-term residual effects.”
Armstrong said that by the time a human gets sick and is diagnosed through blood tests with one of these illnesses, the risks are even higher. “The human cases are a lagging indicator of risk. By the time we learn about it, it’s usually weeks after.”
A few key species of mosquitoes spread the virus and increase its concentration by biting birds. Then other species of mosquitoes also bite the birds and then bite people. People can only get sick from bites from infected mosquitoes. Humans don’t spread the disease in any way; they are simply victims.
Armstrong said the trapping and testing they do is the only way to “know what we’re dealing with” each year in the mosquito population and protect people from these illnesses. “The risk of these viruses changes each year with variable weather conditions and other factors that we don’t fully understand,” he said, “so the only way to know what the risk is, is to go out and do the hard work which is trapping.”
Melanie Stengel Photo.
John Shepard (front), assistant scientist, and Catherine Goncalves, laboratory research assistant, sort the various types of mosquitoes collected from traps in the New Haven area. The mosquitoes will then be sent for testing.
The Numbers. What The Traps Are Showing
As of Oct. 4, the West Nile virus had been found in trapped mosquitoes in 45 towns, including Greenwich, Hartford, New Haven, Norwalk, Waterford, Wethersfield, and Stamford. The virus tends to accumulate in mosquitoes that breed in puddles and storm drains in urban areas.
Jamestown Canyon virus has been found in mosquitoes trapped in 16 towns.
Year to year, the trap data shows fluctuations in disease-carrying mosquitoes, depending on how much it has rained. In 2020, the West Nile virus was detected in mosquitoes in 29 trap locations in 21 towns. Jamestown Canyon virus showed up 13 times in seven towns. The rare Eastern equine encephalitis was found twice that year: in Stonington and Hampton.
In 2019, 122 instances of EEE were found in mosquitoes trapped in 20 towns, a substantial number for EEE, scientists said. West Nile virus was detected 82 times in 24 towns. Jamestown Canyon virus was found 20 times in 11 towns.
It may be difficult to translate virus presence in the traps to percentages of disease carriers in the general public. But a different kind of test published in 2001 offered a clue. A team from CAES looked for antibodies to the Jamestown Canyon virus in samples from blood donors. It concluded the virus was present in about 4% of the general population. Most people who get exposed, therefore, don’t get sick. But it can be fatal: the public health department reported in August 2021 that a patient in Dublin, New Hampshire, died of Jamestown Canyon. There is no commercial blood test for the Jamestown Canyon virus. The only way to test people is by sending samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Human cases are very rare and sporadic,” Armstrong said, “but it’s also likely, because there is no testing on a regular basis, that some of these infections are not diagnosed.”
Climate Change Could Be Making It Worse
Climate change could be creating conditions that make the situation worse. Connecticut is getting wetter and warmer, and mosquitoes breed in temporary pools of water until the first frost.
Mosquito populations have been exploding in recent years. A team of five scientists from CAES found in a 2020 study that mosquitoes—unlike many other insects—have increased dramatically since 2001. The study found the number of mosquitoes trapped has risen by about 60% since 2001, and “species richness” has increased by 10%.
Armstrong is a coauthor of the study, along with the former mosquito program head, Theodore Andreadis. “There are a lot of papers that have come out recently on what they call insect Armageddon—all these beneficial insects that are declining in abundance and diversity,” Armstrong said. “But one exception is tee mosquito. At least here in Connecticut, mosquitoes are getting more abundant. They’re getting more diverse. With the heavy rain and the wetter summers and warmer winters, I think it’s all creating nice conditions for them,” Armstrong said.
The trend continued this year. The numbers of mosquitoes have been the highest in 20 years, based on what scientists are finding in the traps.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
CAES research assistant Michael Olson, demonstrates setting a mosquito trap in the kind of shady area that mosquitoes like.
The Trapping Program
The CAES collects mosquitoes from spring through fall at 108 locations in 88 cities and towns. It increased the trap number by 16 after an outbreak of EEE in 2019, Armstrong said. CAES staff identify every individual mosquito, divide them into groups by species, and test them all for the three viruses. The public can view the reports here.
State health officials advise residents across the state to wear long sleeves and long pants and apply insect repellent when they go outside, especially at dawn and dusk when many mosquitoes bite.
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Once known in the neighborhood as the “mud hole,” a crime spot for “drug trafficking and all kinds of stuff,” the Learning Corridor is now a place where neighborhood residents gather to take care of their health and well-being, said Doreen Abubakar, founder and volunteer director of the Community Placemaking and Engagement Network (CPEN).
“We held a six-month in-house training about diabetes,” Abubakar said. “My sister who had diabetes brought down her blood sugar to pre-diabetic levels after she did the training.” The participants learned the importance of exercise to manage their diabetes, and residents joined the national walking club movement Girl Trek. Last year, Abubakar and her team planted native perennials and shrubs, and this year received a grant for the nursery from the Audubon Society.
But those who live in and work to improve Newhallville—a neighborhood long associated with poverty, violence, and trauma—know more work needs to be done.
Newhallville is one of thousands of neighborhoods in the U.S. where childhood opportunity is ranked “Very Low”—a designation that impacts their health, well-being and even lifespan—new neighborhood-level data from Brandeis University show.
“All our data show that two children born just a few miles apart [in New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford metros] experience vastly different neighborhood conditions in childhood and have a six or more year gap in life expectancy simply based on where they were born,” said Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at the Heller School at Brandeis. In fact, Newhallville ranks “Very Low” for overall child opportunity across 29 indicators, including access to green spaces, walkability, and access to healthy foods.
Residents are all too aware of the disparities cited in the study. “Just drive up four blocks or so and there are millionaires,” said Rhonda Nelson Sheffield, a 56-year-old resident and manufacturing worker who has lived in the neighborhood her entire life.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Tammy R. Chapman in her garden. In addition to vegetables she grows medicinal herbs and plants to attract pollinators.
Newhallville is an area that has been disadvantaged since the 1960s and has become “even more economically disadvantaged over time, as evidenced by the fact that it has become poorer relative to other areas—even if its absolute poverty rates or income levels have not changed or have even improved at times,” said Mark Abraham, executive director at DataHaven.
According to a 2019 DataHaven report, the average household in Newhallville earned $33,113 annually, compared with $73,781 statewide. Nearly 4,054 residents were living in households with incomes less than twice the federal poverty level. In Newhallville and nearby Dixwell combined, as much as 83% of children under 18 were considered low income, the data from 2017 show.
One mile in radius, Newhallville is situated within a metro that offers vastly different opportunities to children living just a few blocks apart from each other. The Brandeis researchers refer to this difference as the Child Opportunity Gap.
In the New Haven metro area, the Child Opportunity Gap is 90 points—the poorest scoring neighborhood had a score of 6, while the highest-scoring neighborhood scored 96.
Barriers To Healthy Food
Across the country, cost and distance are barriers to healthy food. In Newhallville, 30% of households do not possess a vehicle, compared with 9% of households statewide, according to DataHaven.
“We live in a food desert,” said Devin Avshalom-Smith, whose grandparents migrated to Newhallville from North Carolina nearly 65 years ago to find work. Avshalom-Smith is working with Gather New Haven and the New England Brewing Company to secure funding for the Big Starr Street Garden and Little Starr Street Garden and has plans to distribute fresh produce to Newhallville residents. He is also circulating petitions to qualify to run in a Democratic primary for alder in the 20th Ward.
“There’s nothing here except the corner store,” Sheffield said.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Madison Roscoe, 6, of New Haven checks out books dropped off at the Learning Corridor.
Sheffield’s friend Jeanette Sykes, founder of the nonprofit Perfect Blend, which helps students prepare for college, also grew up in Newhallville. “We should get fresh vegetables and not have to go all the way to Hamden or the downtown New Haven Stop & Shop,” Sykes said. “It’s expensive, too. The local stores mostly carry canned things that have more sodium.”
Despite the challenges, Tammy Chapman, founder of Newhallville Community Matters, is proud to be a resident of a neighborhood that has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988. The neighborhood was once home to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
“There’s deep roots here,” Chapman said. “There’s generational families. And so, there’s no shame. You’re having a tough time, you can call the neighbor down the street who may have a connection to the food pantry.”
During the height of the pandemic, neighbors quickly identified people who they thought might be in need. “At some point, we were all panicking because there was very little flour, very little milk and these types of items,” Chapman said. “But if people had extra—and the churches were wide open distributing food bags—those places made it a little bit easier. I found people working together really, really well. That’s the beauty of the community that I represent.”
Residents also began planting vegetables on porches in pots or in side and back gardens. Chapman grows tomatoes, green beans, and lettuce and is frequently bagging extra produce for neighbors.
Neighborhood Investments
Over the last few years, several community groups have made investments to help improve the quality of life in Newhallville.
Melanie Stengel Photo.
Alex Martinez helps Salamatu Mohammed get started riding one of the bicycles provided for use by the Learning Corridor. Martinez is a Newhallville resident and works for the Community Placement Engagement Network. (CPEN )
The Beulah Heights Social Integration Program provides grants of up to $15,000 for rent and utility assistance for residents in the Newhallville, Dixwell and Fair Haven neighborhoods. Only 30% of Newhallville residents own homes, Brandeis data show. “Investors are buying houses here, and they are pricing us out,” said Sheffield, who rents an apartment. Her parents own their house across the street from where she lives.
ConnCAT is responding to the lack of access to capital with a plan to disburse $600,000 to families in Newhallville and Dixwell for basic needs and to create Black-owned businesses.
The Hispanic Health Council’s office on Sherman Avenue provides support for mental health and substance use disorders. Now, caseworkers are addressing rising anxiety levels from pandemic isolation. “A lot of our families have issues with depression and anxiety,” said Carlos Rivera, director of Behavioral Health Services. “On top of it, they’re afraid to go outside [because they are unvaccinated due to fear of vaccination]. They lock themselves in.”
Now, Newhallville is attracting an influx of people. The neighborhood is “becoming very mixed,” Chapman said. “Especially last year, people from New York and New Jersey were coming into smaller areas. We’re seeing students from Albertus Magnus, Quinnipiac, Southern and Yale. People are coming in because they feel and see something that is, I would say, unique.”
C-HIT intern Ishan Rangarajan, a student of math and economics at Princeton University, compiled data for this story.
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