To Jeannette DeJesus, executive director of the Hartford-based Hispanic Health Council (HHC), the numbers describing the state of Latino health in Connecticut add up to a crisis: Latinos make up 10 percent of the state population, and of them 40 percent are uninsured, a “very high percent are working and underinsured," and more than 20 percent if asked will tell you their health is fair or poor. Asthma hospitalization rates are five times higher among Latinos than whites, the diabetes mortality rate is 60 percent higher, and diabetes hospitalizations are twice as likely. Amputations of a “lower extremity" are two and half times higher. For instance.

That's why DeJesus and a team from the HHC are about to launch the Latino Health Public Policy Institute. With help from grants from the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut and the Connecticut Health Foundation, they plan to span the state getting the real deal on health disparities, and then set â€" and move â€" an agenda for undoing them.

“The Hispanic Health Council is in a good position to do this, because we've always conducted community-based research that informs the services we provide. Our information comes from listening to communities, from asking 'What's happening with you? What's going on with you?' Formalizing our policy-advocacy work will allow us to reach the community on a different level. We hope that by mobilizing people around health issues, we'll help the [Latino] community lower health disparities in the community."

The goal, said DeJesus, is to “mobilize people at different levels, to address public leadership and provide information to legislators. We plan to partner with local agencies around the state to help Latinos within the community to speak â€" to help them have a voice, and be a resource to leadership."

“I feel very strongly that people need to be engaged in finding solutions to the problems in their own communities. [On health], Latinos have not been at the table. The policy institute will provide a forum within the community for addressing the crisis."

Is there a special urgency now?

The fact that so many in the Latino community are uninsured, underinsured, with no access to health careâ€" it's creating a health crisis in the state of Connecticut. If you look at a particular illness [like asthma, diabetes, or AIDS] across the board, you'll see that Latinos are in serious trouble. We wanted to do something in addition to service, to redress the fact that in public policy, the Latino voice is nearly missing. Right now our communities cannot influence the direction of social change.

What policy changes do you see yourselves fighting for first? I know that here in New Haven, local agencies like Connecticut Voices for Children worry about the Deficit Reduction Act and new requirements starting July 1 that Medicaid seekers have a passport to show. Will you focus on those kinds of policies especially hard on immigrants?

Every public hospital must provide free care, to anyone who presents, who doesn't have insurance â€" Anyone. And I sympathize: it's costing hospitals millions and millions to provide that care. There are people, then, who are not that fond of immigrants, who define the health crisis as created by immigrants. That's not really the case.

So what needs to happen to change their minds?

We need universal health care. We want universal health care. We support any effort towards universal health care. We need to keep focus on the larger issues: the inadequacy of the system to meet needs in the state of Connecticut of people that are uninsured or underinsured â€" meaning people are getting very poor care, and end up draining the system.

Your work will be for health care for everyone, then, and not for specific groups?

The plan is to put together a Latino health policy agenda for the state of Connecticut. We plan to invite people from throughout the state to join us in a series of dialogues: what issues should be on the agenda? Universal health care, medical interpretation, health literacy: Those are three areas for reducing health disparities in the state. Groups from the community will surely put immigration on the agenda. We want to allow for those suggestions, true to the effort to make this a community-based movement.

Are there key policies and practices creating the disparity, do you think?

I wish we could point to one thing. It's a combination of factors. A higher number [of Latinos] are uninsured. When they seek care, their needs are then higher. People come in sicker. And when they do seek help, many are served by people who don't speak Spanish. Hospitals lack medical interpreters, and without good medical interpretation, the quality of care is not as high. My ten-year old grandson won't be able to facilitate the kind of communication needed to get me the best care.

What about the docs themselves giving different care, better care to white patients, like you said? Why would being white get me more painkiller for toothache, or make a man with testicular cancer more likely to get treated without amputation?

Maybe [they think] we don't need Latino testicles as much as white testicles â€" I don't know. There's a much higher instance of doctors cutting off limbs of non-Whites. And the thing is, if we went to a Black or Hispanic doctor, the same thing would happen. There are subtleties here, matters of class and race, deeper and more profound than we can easily understand. There is something in the training of medical doctors, something in the social fabric... It's complex. More than one thing adds to health disparities. The immediate thing is to close the gap.