Fear of becoming infected with COVID-19 is reasonable – especially now with plans announced to start reopening Connecticut. There are things you can do to take precautions. C-HIT’s Colleen Shaddox talks with Rajita Sinha, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Professor in the Child Study Center and of Neuroscience at Yale and director of the Yale Stress Center. about how to take control and manage fear during the pandemic.

Putting a loved one in a nursing home is fraught with emotions and a common one is guilt. People are feeling a resurgence of that guilt now that their loved one is at higher risk. Dr. Kirsten Wilkins, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, talks with Colleen Shaddox about strategies you can use to help your elderly relatives – and yourself – cope during the pandemic.

Adolescents want and need to be with peers, so the isolation imposed by the pandemic is especially hard for them. Dr. Megan V. Smith, associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, talks about how parents can support and protect their teenaged children.

COVID-19 has many parents trying to do their jobs from home, supervise their children’s education and provide 24-7 care. Dr. Megan V. Smith, associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, discusses ways to keep parents from feeling overwhelmed in high stress situations.

It’s important to practice physical distancing – but not social distancing. People need connection and belonging. Dr. Megan V. Smith, associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, discusses ways to battle loneliness.

This is Lost Lives, a new series of podcasts presented by the Connecticut Health I-Team's The Workup. Lost Lives examines the starkest health disparity – life expectancy. People living in poverty in the United States die younger than Americans with more wealth. In each episode, we’re going to create a portrait of someone who suffered early death and talk with family about how the loss continues to shape their own lives. On this episode, Janet Rice, whose son, Shane Oliver, was fatally shot...

This is Lost Lives, a new series of podcasts presented by the Connecticut Health I-Team's The Workup. Lost Lives examines the starkest health disparity – life expectancy. People living in poverty in the United States die younger than Americans with more wealth. In each episode, we’re going to create a portrait of someone who suffered early death and talk with family about how the loss continues to shape their own lives. On this episode, Gail Williams, who is 60 and lives in New Haven.

Medical homes are producing better patient outcomes by a variety of measures. Patients seen in this environment get more primary and preventive care and are less likely to end up in the emergency room.

Wanda Perez is grocery shopping at the New Haven Stop & Shop. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the regular prices of the items she buys, and nothing goes in the cart without Wanda weighing the price and the healthiness of that particular food. She needs to make her SNAP benefits last – and she needs to consider her diet.

Smoking is common among people with mental illness – they buy about 40 percent of the cigarettes sold in the US. Quitting can be harder for people with a mental health diagnosis – and they can have trouble finding the help they need to kick the habit.

Some people rely on Medicaid to access health care. Or they use other federal benefits, like food stamps and housing assistance, to build the foundations of a healthy life. A proposed change to federal regulations, though, is making some immigrants wary of accessing these services. The Workup is an occasional series of podcasts exploring health issues that concern you.

Women are about twice as likely to suffer from depression as men. Poor and minority women are less likely to get help than affluent or white women. They may face financial barriers, cultural stigma, fear of losing custody of their children, fear of deportation or other hurdles.  So mental health providers are getting creative to reach these women – sometimes in unusual places.

Connecticut author Luanne Rice has had depression, probably going back to her days in elementary school. But now she is managing her illness with a combination of therapy, medication and self-care that includes a lot of time spent in nature. Women are about twice as likely to suffer from depression as men. It’s the leading cause of disability worldwide.

This is part one of The Workup’s series on women and depression. Stress can be a pathway to depression for both sexes but is a more potent pathway for women than it is for men. They are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men are and it is the leading cause of disability worldwide.

One in five American children is growing up in poverty. That determines what they eat, where or if they exercise and even whether or not a parent can call 911 in an emergency. Yet most health care providers do not receive in-depth education about how poverty affects children's health. Joanne Goldblum founder and CEO of the New Haven-based National Diaper Bank Network is out to change that.

Research shows that patients enjoy better health when they have good communication with their doctors. Here are some simple tips to get the most out of your visit.

MAT combines traditional counseling or psychotherapy with drugs that can help ease withdrawal and reduce cravings. Studies show relapse rates are lower when medication is used in addiction treatment. That is a huge and potentially life saving benefit.

More than 34 million Americans provide unpaid care to an older adult every year, according to AARP. Managing an aging parent’s health care can be complicated, logistically and emotionally. Experts say that talking about eldercare years before it’s needed is key to making the task easier. Colleen Shaddox has the story. The Work Up is a production of the Connecticut Health Investigative Team. You can find more information about caring for an elderly parent at our website, c-hit.org. This...

Stephanie Almada wanted relief from premenstrual syndrome. Her doctor sent her home with a powerful prescription pain reliever. For Almada, as for many other women in Connecticut and nationwide, that prescription was an avoidable step on what became a challenging journey through opioid addiction. Women use opioids at higher rates than men and more quickly become seriously ill from abusing them. Deaths from opioid overdose in Connecticut rose 125 percent in a single year, according to a...

Connecticut has already legalized medical marijuana, and there are several bills working through the legislature to legalize it for recreational use. In eight states, including Massachusetts, recreational pot is already legal. Addiction experts say that it’s important for consumers to understand that just because a drug is legal does not mean that it is harmless.

Nearly 20 percent of Connecticut children live in homes that are food insecure, according to a study by the Connecticut Food Bank and Feeding America. Those children are at higher risk of obesity than their peers. That’s because their families rely on cheap but unhealthy food to fill their grocery carts, because they live in places that don’t offer good opportunities for physical activity, and it is also because their parents are working so many hours, that fast food becomes a major player in...

Summer in Connecticut – and you feel like you’re surrounded by bugs. Because you are. But don’t blame the mild winter for the influx of disease carrying ticks in your backyard. They love it here pretty much every year.

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan has thrown a spotlight on lead poisoning, a problem that many people thought had gone away. But lead poisoning is very much with us in Connecticut. The state’s most recent data shows that 2,275 children under age 6 had lead poisoning in 2013. Dr. Hilda Slivka directs the Regional Lead Treatment Center at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, where she sees lead-poisoned children weekly. For more CT health stories, visit http://c-hit.org/.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth are at much higher risk than their peers for all the behaviors that he describes. While LGBT youth may be especially in need of good medical care, it can be hard to find. National surveys report high rates of LGBT people being turned away or treated disrespectfully by health care providers.