Public health board appointees Gregg Gonsalves and Alice Forrester.
Curfews and fines won’t save lives in this pandemic. Nor will shaming.
More testing, masks, and counseling will work better, testified two experts on tap to help guide New Haven’s public health approach during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The two experts — Gregg Gonsalves and Alice Forrester — made that pitch Monday night during the latest virtual meeting of the Aldermanic Affairs Committee.
Gathering online over Zoom and YouTube Live, committee alders unanimously supported Mayor Justin Elicker’s appointments of Forrester and Gonsalves to serve on the city’s Board of Public Health Commissioners. That’s the policy-making and advisory body for the city’s Health Department.
Forrester is the CEO of the Clifford Beers Clinic, a local children’s mental health outpatient clinic where she has worked for 23 years, the last 13 as the director.
Gonsalves is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, the co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, and a veteran social justice and public health advocate who has lived in New Haven for over a decade.
Their appointments represent just the latest examples of the mayor tapping academic and subject-matter experts of statewide and national acclaim to serve as volunteers on local boards and commissions.
Previous such appointments approved earlier this year include Yale Law School professor Tracey Meares to the police commission, University of New Haven professor Michael Lawlor to the police commission, Yale Law School associate professor Anika Singh Lemar to the Affordable Housing Commission, and Yale School of Medicine assistant professor Erin Nozetz and associate professor Marjorie Rosenthal to the city’s Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee.
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Monday night’s Aldermanic Affairs Committee virtual meeting.
“I think the Health Department can highly benefit from both of these appointments,” Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez said in support of Forrester and Gonsalves. “These two individuals are going to be very influential in the qualitative service we can give our city in reference to medicine and public health.”
Their appointments now advance to the full Board of Alders for a final vote.
Forrester: “Mental Health Perspective” Is Key
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Forrester at a 2018 meeting.
If approved to the Board of Public Health Commissioners, Forrester said, she would bring decades of expertise in understanding the role that mental health plays in public health more broadly.
During the pandemic, she said, the mayor asked her to convene a group of community members to talk about mental health during Covid. That led to the creation of the Clifford Beers Clinic’s “warm line,” where clinic staffers answer the phone seven days a week to take calls about mental health support and basic needs, such as food access. “Some calls last 10 minutes,” she said. “Some last an hour.”
“We believe that in a public health epidemic, it’s very important to think about mental health, social isolation, and making sure that folks are paying attention to the social, mental and emotional needs of individuals,” she added.
Forrester promised to bring that “mental health perspective” to the city’s public health board.
Committee Chair and Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Ferraro-Santana praised Forrester’s appointment as providing a “great asset the city and to the community” if approved by the full local legislature.
Gonsalves: More Testing, Incentives To “Promote Healthy Behavior”
Lucy Gellman file photo
Gonsalves at a 2017 March for Science.
When asked what kind of expertise he would bring to the city’s public health board, Gonsalves cited his academic background as an infectious disease epidemiologist specializing in HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and, now, Covid-19.
He also cited his 30-plus years working for community-based organizations across the country and world “trying to get communities what they need in order to protect their health.”
“I feel strongly that we have to lift up the health of everybody in New Haven,” he said.
What do you see as some of the key public health challenges we face in New Haven today? asked Committee Vice-Chair and Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton.
One of the biggest, Gonsalves said, is the disparities in Covid-related deaths and infections in the city and across the state. A breakdown of where infections have occurred in New Haven shows a disproportionate number in nursing homes, and in working-class communities of color.
“Covid does not cut an equal swath across New Haven,” he said, because of systemic and historic inequalities around access to and quality of healthcare and employment, among other factors.
As the city thinks about vaccine distribution and increasing testing, he said, “We need to make sure that communities of color receive attention so that we can stem the tide of infections.”
So what does that mean in practice? Hamilton continued. What should the city be doing to stem the rising tide of Covid in an equitable fashion?
First and foremost, the city needs to scale up Covid testing, he said. That means advocating for more state and federal financial support for more and more accessible testing.
The city also has to prioritize making masks available to everyone in the community he said. If you go to Stop & Shop to buy a package of masks, for example, “it’s not cheap.” People should not have to decide between paying for dinner and paying for masks.
“We have to incentivize good public health practices by encouraging them to do the right thing.”
That means casting a wary eye on such punitive and shame-based practices as imposing curfews, fining people for not social distancing or wearing a mask, or resorting to other tactics that heap blame on individuals struggling to survive during the pandemic. Many people do not have the luxury to not go to work in-person, he said. Many do not have access to paid sick leave.
“We have to think about ways we can help people be safer rather than shame them or coerce them into behavior,” he said. That means coming up with “incentives to promote healthy behavior.”
Gonsalves said he will advocate for that type of positive public health approach even beyond Covid if confirmed to serve on the city’s public health board. He said that approach should also be in place for deterring the spread of HIV and curbing smoking, as well as for other kinds of diseases.