Data Story

Introduction: Where Are School-Based Health Centers — and Who’s Missing Out?

For a lot of children, schools aren't just places for learning. They are community spaces where children spend the majority of their time as well as where they go to access support for their physical, mental, environmental health and well-being. School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) play a big role in this support system. SBHC - School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) are clinics located inside or near schools that provide students with easy access to medical, mental health, and sometimes dental care during the school day. They provide students with the access they need for medical, mental health, and sometimes dental services directly in their schools. For some students who face barriers to healthcare, like lack of insurance, transportation, community support, or flexible parent-work schedules, SBHCs can be life-changing.

Unfortunately, in Connecticut, not every school district or town has an SBHC. This uneven access may reflect broader inequities across communities, which raises important questions about equity. Are SBHCs located in the towns that need them most—the towns with higher poverty rates and larger populations relying on public health insurance? Or are they only in towns or wealthier areas with fewer barriers to receiving care?

Our question asks how towns with School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) differ from those without, in terms of median household income and the percentage of residents receiving Medicaid health insurance (also known as “HUSKY” or a “medical benefit plan” from the CT Department of Social Services, DSS). HUSKY is Connecticut’s health insurance program that includes Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It provides low-cost or no-cost medical coverage to eligible children, parents, pregnant adults, and some low-income residents. These two indicators show much more about broader economic and healthcare access disparities across Connecticut. If towns lacking SBHCs generally have higher incomes and fewer residents on Medicaid, that could mean that the communities with the greatest need for school-based health services may have the least access to them.

Findings

This bar chart shows the comparison of Median Household Income in towns that have SBHC's and towns that do not.

Figure 1 as seen above, shows that towns that have a lower median household income tend to have more SBHC's. This is a good thing as there may be a higher need in the communities that are recieving acess to the SBHC's.

Both of these interactive chloropleth maps show the Median Household Income of Towns with SBHC’s vs. Towns without SBHC’s. It also shows how many SBHC’s are in each town.

Figure 2 as seen above, shows how some towns that boarder each other (New Britain vs. Newington) can have a vast difference in the amount of SBHC’S. There is a 13:1 difference, respectively. Children’s health needs can be more difficult to meet due to the location of their school and home.

Figure 3 as seen above, shows the median household income of towns with SBHC.

HUSKY is Connecticut’s version of Medicaid. It also includes the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides coverage for children whose families make too much to qualify for regular Medicaid. The table below highlights the differences between HUSKY A, B, C, and D. It shows who is covered, how many people in CT it covers, the average cost per person monthly, and how much the federal government pays.

Figure 4 as shown above, outlines the differences between A, B, C, and D. It compares them side by side so it’s easy to see how they vary in terms of who they cover, how they work, and what they provide.

Our Process

For our project, we began by defining our main research question: how Connecticut towns with school-based health centers differ from those without them in terms of median household income and the percentage of residents receiving Medicaid, including HUSKY A, B, C, D, and MSP. We reviewed background information from the Medicaid topic Guide and CT Open Data – DSS People Served by Town and Medical Benefit Plan to understand the structure of the HUSKY program and the availability of town-level Medicaid enrollment data. Using Isabel’s updated sheet, we identified which schools offered SBHC services and which did not, and we used this same dataset to determine which districts had no services at all. Our next steps involved defining clear income categories (low, middle, and high) and finding reliable datasets for SBHC locations, median household income, and Medicaid coverage by town or district. After gathering the data, we cleaned and merged the Medicaid topic Guide by standardizing town names and adding indicators for SBHC presence, income, and Medicaid levels. With a unified dataset, we created visualizations such as comparing income levels in towns with and without SBHCs, and maps showing Medicaid rates alongside SBHC locations with SBHC and without SBHC. Finally, we analyzed our results and summarize the full process for future students, including explanations of how we obtained our data, important steps in cleaning and interpretation, and acknowledgments of the people, tools, and resources that supported our work.

When working with any data, there are cautions that come with interpreting the data. There are several limitations in the data. First, some datasets come from different years, which means income levels, Medicaid enrollment, and SBHC availability may not align perfectly in time. Also, town and district boundaries do not always match, so data reported by town may not reflect the exact populations served by specific schools or SBHCs. The presence of an SBHC does not necessarily indicate the level or quality of services provided, and our dataset does not capture differences in capacity, staffing, or funding across centers. Medicaid enrollment varies widely by age, eligibility category, and verification timing, so percent-Medicaid figures should be interpreted as estimates rather than exact counts. The differences in how organizations report data, such as naming conventions or categories, may create inconsistencies even after cleaning. Finally, correlation does not imply causation: towns with SBHCs may differ in income or Medicaid rates for reasons unrelated to SBHC presence, so our comparisons should be understood as descriptive rather than causal.

We want to acknowledge the people and organizations who supported us throughout this project. Our professor, Jack, guided us in shaping our research question and helped us understand how to approach data storytelling thoughtfully. We are also grateful to our research assistant, Ali Macdougall, for helping us navigate our data sources and refine our methods, and to our TA, Nellie, who supported us in creating clear charts and understanding the goals of the final data story. We also benefited from valuable feedback from our community partners, whose insights helped us interpret our findings and stay grounded in real community needs. Finally, we relied on essential information from the U.S. Census Bureau, CT Health Foundation, Connecticut Department of Education, and the Connecticut Directory of School-Based Health Centers, whose publicly available data made this project possible.

Conclusion

Overall, our data visualizations reveal a strong relationship between community need and the presence of School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) in Connecticut. Towns with lower median household incomes and higher percentages of residents enrolled in Medicaid (HUSKY) are much more likely to have SBHCs. This suggests that many centers are being placed where they can have the greatest impact, serving students who face more barriers to accessing traditional healthcare. At the same time, the maps highlight gaps. Neighboring towns with very different income levels or Medicaid enrollment rates sometimes show major differences in SBHC availability, raising many important questions about equity and access.

Understanding where SBHCs are located and who may be missing out helps us see how economic and structural factors shape children's ability to receive essential health services. While our analysis cannot determine causation, it provides a meaningful descriptive picture of statewide disparities. Future research could explore how SBHC capacity, funding, or school-level characteristics influence access, and how expanding SBHC coverage could reduce these gaps.

By combining data on income, Medicaid enrollment, and SBHC distribution, this project shows the importance of placing health resources where students need them most. Better data, continued community partnerships, and thoughtful policy decisions can help ensure that all children regardless of where they live have access to the school-based health services that support their well-being and future success.

School Based Health Center - Wilby High School. https://wilby.waterbury.k12.ct.us/school-based-health-center . Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Figure 5 as seen above, shows a picture of a student inside the SBHC in Wilbubry High School, Waterburry, CT.

This picture of a student recieving medical care within their own school show's how important SBHC's are and how they can change lives.

Work Cited

“Medicaid in CT.” Connecticut Health Foundation, https://www.cthealth.org/topic-guides/medicaid-in-ct/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

“CT Health-and-Human-Services.” CT.Gov EdSight, https://public-edsight.ct.gov/Overview/Resident-Town-Dashboard/Resident-Town-Export. Accessed 29 Nov. 2022.

"Collaborative, CTData." 2021 American Community Survey for Connecticut - CTData Collaborative. https://acs2021.ctdata.org/. . Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"Connecticut Health Foundation." (2024, December). Medicaid in Connecticut: HUSKY Fact sheet. https://www.cthealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Medicaid-in-CT-fact-sheet.pdf. . Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"DSS - People Served by Town and Medical Benefit Plan by Month" - CT 2023-2025 | Connecticut Data.