Department of Public Health

For the first time, the state Department of Public Health has released to the public details about how many children at each school in the state are vaccinated.

After watching his predecessor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, spar with Connecticut’s hospitals for much of the past eight years, Gov. Ned Lamont got off to a rough start with the industry himself on Wednesday.

Lamont’s new budget canceled a previously approved tax cut for hospitals, replacing it with an effective tax hike of about $43 million per year.

The governor set aggressive goals to cut state health care costs, flat-funded social services and nursing homes, and created a new asset test for a health care assistance program for seniors.

Robert Carmon had a rough start to life. Shortly after birth he developed asthma, a chronic disease that causes inflammation in the lungs and difficulty breathing. His attacks were so severe as an infant that his parents rushed him to the emergency room practically every week. They were terrified he might die.

Some folks see chipped paint on windowsills and door frames of older Connecticut homes as rustic, New England charm. But it makes public health officials wary.

The U.S. banned lead-based paint for housing in 1978. By then, many homes in the state were already constructed.

By the time Arthur Harris Jr. turned 17, he had already endured a childhood of grinding poverty in Hartford’s North End, the death of his mother, and the rejection of a community that viewed homosexuality as a sin. It should have come as no surprise to anyone, then, that he went searching for love and acceptance wherever he could find it — a search that landed him in the arms of a man nearly twice his age and, later, in the kinds of risky situations he’d been warned about in his high school health class.

The recent heat wave is set to come to an end, but temperatures are expected to stay in the low 90’s until the end of the week. Officials warned people to stay inside and keep cool in order to avoid heat related illness.

Connecticut is one of seven states where cases of E. coli poisoning have been reported. The Centers for Disease Control is reporting 17 cases, including two in Connecticut.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are investigating, but so far haven’t linked a specific food, grocery store, or restaurant chain as the source.

Figures on overdose deaths grab headlines, but treatment data could save lives. In response, health officials have released new information on emergency room visits for drug overdoses, numbers that paint a fuller picture of the state's opioid crisis.

As one of the worst flu seasons in recent memory continues, Middlesex Hospital has changed its visitor policies to combat spread of the virus.

Nearly 1,400 new cases of lead-poisoned children under age 6 were reported in Connecticut in 2015, a slight drop from the year before, but more children showed higher levels of poisoning.

State public health officials have released a list of 14 farms in Connecticut that got tainted beef from a Massachusetts slaughterhouse that is the source of an E. coli outbreak. 

Scientists in Connecticut believe new information could indicate the Zika virus is more of a threat than previously thought.

Dr. Theodore Andreadis, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, said new findings from the University of Texas have just been published.

Connecticut had the highest total number of foodborne illness outbreaks in New England from 2005 to 2014, according to federal data -- a distinction that experts say is fueled by better reporting, while higher rates of certain pathogens also may contribute.

Connecticut still ranks high among states in the use of antipsychotic drugs for elderly nursing home residents, but its rate of use has dropped 33 percent since 2011 -- a bigger decline than the national average -- new government data show.

Exposure to lead and lead poisoning is a bigger problem in Connecticut than previously thought, and could be a factor in the achievement gap between white and minority kids in the state.