Where We Live

Three rural Connecticut hospitals have recently suspended labor and delivery services or announced plans to do so, leaving locals with fewer and farther away options. Today on Where We Live, we get the latest on what this means for rural residents. How are labor and delivery services changing in our state?

Plus, the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority begins accepting applications December 1, with paid leave benefits going into effect in 2022. Hear from CEO Andrea Barton Reeves.

GUESTS:

• Andrea Barton Reeves - CEO, Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Authority
• Nicole Leonard - Health Reporter, Connecticut Public
• Ilda Ray - Chairperson, Windham/Willimantic NAACP Education Committee; Windham Board of Education
• John Brady - Executive Vice President, AFT CT

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Sex ed curriculum varies greatly across our state and our country.

Today, please be advised we’re talking about sex specifically, sex education.

Although schools are required to teach human development and disease prevention, Connecticut schools are not required to teach sexual health education.

It’s often a short curriculum taught in high school. And conversations about consent, and LGBTQ inclusivity are left out.

We want to hear from you. What do you wish you had learned from your sex ed class in school?

GUESTS:

• Michelle Rawcliffe - Comprehensive School Health Educator at Woodstock Middle School
• Taz Weisgerber  - Training and Technical Assistance Manager at Answer

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Women-founded or co-founded firms in the U.S. raised $25.12 billion in venture capital in the first half of 2021, more than in any prior year, according to PitchBook. The reason? Women founders are raising a greater share through late-stage deals and high-value sectors. More women are writing checks at VC firms. And networks of female founders are thriving in cities like New York.

Yet the investments are just 2.7%, or $3.54 billion, of the total VC funding pie, PitchBook noted. Within that statistic, across the U.S., just 34 Black female founders raised $1 million in VC money in 2018. That number, according to ProjectDiane, shot up to 93 Black women in 2020.

Connecticut saw the launch of a couple of women-owned investment firms and the acquisition of women-founded companies this year -- Mizzen Capital and Greenworks Lending, for instance -- but the majority of women entrepreneurs continue to struggle for funding in a state that has yet to return to its pre-pandemic level workforce.

How do women entrepreneurs navigate the funding environment?

GUESTS: 

• Marie Rocha: Founder & General Partner, Realist Ventures
• Wendy Ward: Founder & CEO, futures Thrive
• Liddy Karter: Managing Partner, Mizzen Capital
• Alexandra Cooley: COO & Co-founder, Greenworks Lending from Nuveen
• Mary Anne Rooke: President and Managing Director, Angel Investor Forum

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A new study by the National Institutes of Health and the Research Triangle Institute, found alcohol consumption by women with children younger than age 5, surged 323% during the pandemic.

Researchers compared alcohol consumption rates in February 2020 to April of 2020, when stay-at-home guidelines were in effect, and further along into the pandemic year in November. More women than men exceeded recommended drinking guidelines between April and November.

But for as long as nearly a century, women have been closing the gender gap in the consumption of alcohol, binge-drinking, and alcohol use disorder.What are some triggers, coping mechanisms, and treatment options available to treat women with alcohol use disorder?

GUESTS:

• Kathleen Callahan - Stratford resident; sober for 10 years
• Beverley Brakeman - West Hartford resident; sober for 31 years
• Amanda Aronson - Principal, Aronson Consulting, West Hartford; sober for 7.5 years
• Dr. Jeanette Tetrault - Professor of Medicine and Public Health, and Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship, Yale School of Medicine, and and Associate Director of Addiction Medicine at Yale Medicine

Cat Pastor contributed to this show which originally aired September 20, 2021.

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Photography can be documentary, capturing a place and time as they are. It can also provide a means for reimagining the world around us. Hear from two Connecticut artists using the medium to show where they live in a different light.

Pablo Delano is a visual artist and Trinity College fine arts professor based in West Hartford, whose book of photography 'Hartford Seen,' was the first to focus on the capital city. Delano discusses the ways the book defies traditional depictions of Hartford.

Plus, artist and photographer Rashmi Talpade believes art is everywhere and creativity is within everyone. Hear about her collaborations with different Connecticut communities, reimagining their surroundings through large-scale collage.

GUESTS:

• Pablo Delano - Visual Artist and Photographer; Professor of Fine Arts, Trinity College
• Rashmi Talpade - Artist and Photographer

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Roya Hakakian came to the US as a refugee from Iran when she was just a teenager.

Now, the Connecticut author and poet has drawn on her life story to create a “guidebook” about the immigrant experience.

This hour, Hakakian joins us to talk about her new book, A Beginner’s Guide To America.

We want to hear from you, too. How has the history and experience of immigration in your family shaped your experience as an American?

GUESTS:

• Roya Hakakian - Author, poet, and Connecticut resident. Her latest book is A Beginner’s Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious

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One hundred years ago in November, two Canadian researchers at the University of Toronto, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, discovered insulin, the life-saving drug for people with diabetes. What was once a death sentence is today a manageable condition with a tubeless insulin pump, and potentially oral insulin not far down the road.

The rate of diagnosis of type 1 and type 2 diabetes has surged among the U.S. youth population between 2001 and 2017. Data published Aug. 2021 shows a 45% increase in the number of children and youth under age 20 living with type 1 diabetes, while the number of children and youth living with type 2 diabetes climbed by 95%.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) points to studies that estimate five million people in the U.S. to have T1D by 2050, including nearly 600,000 youth.

But racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in blood-glucose outcomes among ethnic and racial minorities exist, as reported in the Type 1 Diabetes Exchange (T1DX) Research Registry and SEARCH study cohorts.

In Connecticut, Medicaid covered 1156 children and youth below age 20 for type 1 diabetes in 2021, and 928 for type 2 diabetes, per the latest data. The HUSKY Health / Medicaid program covered 408,082 children and youth below the age of 20 for 2021, year to date.

In this hour on Where We Live, we discuss trends, technologies, disparities, access, and outcomes.

GUESTS: 

Marie Snow: Public school teacher in Guilford. Mother of Olive, diagnosed with type 1 diabetes

Olive: Diagnosed at age 9 with type 1 diabetes

Dr. Jennifer Sherr: Pediatric Diabetes Specialist at Yale Medicine, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Endocrinology) at the Yale School of Medicine

Jon Muskrat: Executive Director, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (Connecticut and Western Massachusetts Chapter)

Mark Abraham: Executive Director, DataHaven

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The results from the first statewide LGBTQ+ needs assessment survey are in. More than 3,000 residents weighed in, informing the first-of-its-kind report for Connecticut's LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network.

This hour, we focus on health care for transgender and nonbinary residents. "Transgender respondents were 11 times more likely than cisgender respondents to have been refused health care services because of their LGBTQ+ identity," according to the report.

Hear more about the survey from the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition, plus Health Care Advocates International, and the Middlesex Health Center for Gender Medicine and Wellness, one of the first full-spectrum care locations for trans and nonbinary people in the state.

What challenges are there for trans and nonbinary people in getting health care in Connecticut?

GUESTS:

• Diana Lombardi - Executive Director, Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition
• Katy Tierney - Medical Director, Middlesex Health Center for Gender Medicine and Wellness
• Tony Ferraiolo - Youth and Families Program Director, Health Care Advocates International
• Dr. Christy Olezeski - Director and Co-founder, Yale Pediatric Gender Program

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Hartford Seminary has a new name. It’s now the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

Today, we talk to its President Joel Lohr.

And we hear from other faculty members about their efforts to create a more inclusive, interreligious university focusing on peace studies.

There have been a lot of conversations about diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace - but often, talk of religious inclusivity is left out of those discussions.

How can we have more productive discussions about faith?

GUESTS:

• Joel Lohr - President of Hartford International University
• Aida Mansoor - Chaplain and Director of Field Education at Hartford International University
• Deena Grant Associate - Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of Global Community Partnerships at Hartford International University
• Fatima Basharat - a student in the inaugural MA in International Peacebuilding program at Hartford International University

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Could that pandemic puppy you adopted last year be welcome at your workplace? More public spaces, such as restaurants, grocery stores and even offices, have become more welcoming to pets.

This hour, we talk about how pets are changing the way we work and play and how they’re making us much healthier!

We hear from Mark Cushing, author of Pet Nation: The Inside Story of How Companion Animals Are Transforming Our Homes, Culture, and Economy.

Later, we learn how a shortage of veterinarians is impacting the pet economy.

Did you get a pandemic puppy?

GUESTS:

• Mark Cushing - founder and CEO of animal policy group and author of Pet Nation: The Inside Story of How Companion Animals Are Transforming Our Homes, Culture, and Economy.
• Dr. Kim Brinton - owner of Country Companion Veterinary Services in Bethany, Connecticut, and President of Connecticut Veterinary Medical Association

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