Mark Pazniokas :: CT Mirror Sen. Mary Daugherty Abrams, D-Meriden, center, championed passage Tuesday of the bill declaring racism a public health crisis. The state Senate voted Tuesday to declare racism a public health crisis and convene a panel to study the effect of racism on health care. The declaration was part of an omnibus bill that also calls for better data collection on race and ethnicity in health care, requires hospitals to conduct implicit bias training for employees who provide direct care to pregnant or postpartum women, mandates that the public health commissioner study the development of a recruitment and retention program for state health care workers who are people of color, and directs the health department to explore whether to create a certification process for doulas.