By: Emma Conard and Darian Mehran-Lodge
Last updated on December 2 2025
for Data Visualization for Allwith Prof. Jack DoughertyTrinity College, Hartford CT, USA
School-based health centers (SBHC) are clinics located on school grounds that provide medical, dental and/or mental health services to students in order to improve their overall health and well-being. The CT Association of School-Based Health Centers (CASBHC) is currently trying to advocate for the expansion of state funding.The question we are trying to answer is how many SBHC are in each Connecticut (CT) house district and of those SBHC how many of them are receiving state funding from the Department of Public Health. A CT House District is a geographical area in CT that is represented by a single member in the Connecticut House of Representatives. The representative for each district is an elected official who is voted upon by the people whose towns fall into that specific district. It is the representative's role to introduce and vote on bills in areas such as education, environment, public welfare, and public works.
By being able to quantify how many SBHCs are in each house district and its current political party, it can help the leaders at the CASBHC know which house district and its corresponding representative to reach out to in hopes of arguing for the development of an SBHC in their district. Not only is having data regarding the number of SBHC in a house district useful, but so is having data for how many SBHCs in each house district have received state funding. Knowing how many of these SBHCs are not receiving state funding and the house district they reside in, once again can provide the leaders at the Connecticut Association of School-Based Health Centers with a more direct insight of which representatives and house districts require more encouragement to support the incorporation of state funded SBHC in their district.
Figure 1: This Symbol map shows each SBHC with the house district color coded to democrat vs republican run district. Also shown is whether or not each health center receives state funding. This map allows CASBHC to see which districts are underrepresented and where to place efforts in expanding funding as well as access. This data can also be used as a reference when talking with house representatives to receive more funding.
Figure 2:This Searchable data table shows the 151 house districts that are in CT and their corresponding political party. With blue representing the democratic party and red being the republican party. This map allows CASBHC to see how many SBHC are located in each CT district and how many of those have received state funding. This data can be a reference for CASBHC to use if they wanted to take their concerns about lack of state funding to legislation, they now have quantifiable data to back up their claim and need for state funding.
Figure 3: Out of 151 districts, 102 are run by Democrats. These districts contain 257 SBHCs, of which 79 receive state funding. Republican-run districts account for 49 districts with a total of 78 SBHCs, and only 7 of these receive state funding. This means that in Democratic-run districts, about 31% of SBHCs are state-funded, whereas in Republican-run districts only 9% are state-funded. That is a 22-percentage-point difference, with Democratic districts having a substantially higher percentage of their SBHCs being state funded. While the data show a clear correlation between district party and the percentage of SBHCs that receive state funding, this should not be interpreted as evidence of causation. Differences in funding levels may be influenced by a variety of structural factors, including district size, demographic variation, prior funding allocations, or differing community needs.
In order to create this map and searchable table we used data provided from CASBHC that was then sorted and matched by Alison MacDougall and Jack Dougherty. Using a geojson file of the house districts from geodata.ct.gov and the tool map shaper we linked each SBHCs location to the house district it resides in. We then found a list of the Connecticut representatives and their districts and using the xlookup function in google sheets matched the representative information to each SBHC. by importing this data into Datawrapper we were able to create the symbol map, Interactive table and bar chart. This data is based on the 2024–25 CASBHC dataset of school-based health centers and state funding designations. District party control is based on the most recent Connecticut House of Representatives roster. Funding counts reflect the SBHCs designated as state-funded at the time of data collection; changes in funding or district representation after this period are not captured.
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