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Resources

2-1-1 InfoLine for help with health care, substance abuse, mental health issues, and more.

24-Hour Crisis Services in CT, organized by town, from the CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services

Community Health Centers in CT provide comprehensive primary care services in medicine, dentistry, and behavioral health. Services are available to all, with a special commitment to the uninsured, underinsured, and special populations such as patients with HIV/AIDS. Find a location.

From the Connecticut Department of Public Health:

Connecticut Hospital Quality and Utilization
CT Flu Updates and seasonal flu information
Healthcare Associated Infections
Local Health Departments in each town
Office of Health Care Access, which "ensures that the citizens of Connecticut have access to a quality health care delivery system"
CT Public Health Code
Simple Steps to Better Health [PDF] / Spanish version Pasos sencillos hacia una mejor salud
State of Connecticut Regulatory Action Reports - actions taken against licensed individuals and organizations by the Connecticut Department of Public Health

Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS)

Connecticut State Medical Society Health Resources for Patients

Connecticut's Network of Care for Behavioral Health, a resource for individuals, families and agencies concerned with mental health. It provides information about mental health services, laws, and related news, as well as communication tools and other features.

The Connecticut Insurance Department Speakers Bureau offers free programs to help consumers navigate insurance. They will come to your library to speak about insurance-related topics such as life, annuity contracts, long-term care, health, home, renter, automobile, small business, home-based business and Medicare supplement and other plans that work with Medicare. To request a free speaker, call 800-297-3850 or go online to http://www.ct.gov/cid/speaker.

These resources are all offered by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine:

MedlinePlus English version / Spanish version. Medline is a site for patients that contains information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in plain language. Patients can learn about the latest treatments and medical research, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, view medical videos or illustrations, or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.
PubMed contains 24 million citations for biomedical literature from Medline, life science journals, and online books. These citations may include links to full-text content.
PubMed Central is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

Training on how to use PubMed is available online. The National Network of Libraries of Medicine also offers online training.

The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
This is the plain language version for consumers, providing easy access to information on first aid and emergencies as well as a variety of self-assessment tools and other medical calculators. The Merck Manual is no longer printed and is all-digital.
ADAM Multimedia Health Encyclopedia
In MedlinePlus

American Heart Association Patient Information Sheets
Cleveland Clinic
Health Essentials
Harvard Health Publications
From Harvard Medical School
Healthfinder
From the US Department of Health & Human Services
Mayo Clinic
Patient care and health information
Toll-free Numbers for Health Information
Phone numbers for a huge variety of heath-related services, research foundations, and government agencies.
UConn Health's Guide to Online Consumer Health Resources
From the Lyman Maynard Stowe Library at UConn Health Center
University of Iowa Health Library
A comprehensive library featuring articles and patient guides covering common health topics ranging from special procedures to general wellness.

Current health and medical news is available from a number of media venues and health-related nonprofit organizations:

American Cancer Society - News
American Heart Association - News
CNN Health News
EurekAlert!
From the American Association for the Advancement of Science
HealthAffairs Blog
Kaiser Family Foundation
MedlinePlus health and medical news
The New York Times - Health News
ScienceDaily health and medicine news

For Specific Audiences

Kids Health is the "#1 most-visited website for children's health and development," with sections for kids, teens, and parents. Also has pages in Spanish for each audience.
MedlinePlus has a children's page information, quizzes, and games where kids can learn about health, how the body works, and what happens when you go to the hospital. Some of the resources are also available in Spanish.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists websites especially for kids and teens from several federal government health sites.
HealthFinder.gov from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists children's health pages on other federal government sites.

HealthyChildren.org, from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides resources related to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. English version / Spanish version
KidsMentalHealthInfo.com was developed to help parents and caregivers understand their children's mental health issues. English version / Spanish version

Health and Aging, from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Up-to-date and reliable information on aging research and health and wellness for older adults.
Go4Life: Exercises, motivational tips, and free resources to help older adults start and continue exercising
NIHSeniorHealth YouTube Channel: Offers over 110 videos about various health and wellness topics
MedlinePlus offers three topics: Exercise for Seniors, Nutrition for Seniors, and Seniors’ Health

Multimedia and Interactive Resources

The Cleveland Clinic's YouTube channel has an extensive playlist of videos on a variety of health topics.
Medline Plus links to hundreds of prerecorded videos of actual operations performed at medical centers in the United States. Animated videos show the anatomy of body parts and organ systems and how diseases and conditions affect them.

Once or twice a month, host Helen Osborne interviews "people in-the-know about health literacy" in her Health Literacy Out Loud podcasts.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) share their podcasts up to present day.
The Environmental Health Chat podcast series from NIH explores how environmental exposures affect our health. Each episode highlights ways researchers work in partnership with community groups to understand and address environmental health issues.
Mayo Clinic Radio Health Minute podcasts are posted daily.
Johns Hopkins Medicine posts short, daily podcasts with a searchable archive.

The Cleveland Clinic offers free online webchat events with experts in cardiology, vascular medicine, vascular surgery, cardiothoracic surgery and prevention. Sign up for future chats or read transcripts of previous chats.
The Interactive Media Library from New York-Presbyterian Hospital includes videos, 3D models, animations, podcasts, and "clinical wizards" that help educate the user about a specific health condition.

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