public health

The situation in Oregon is not yet on par with major outbreaks in states like Utah and South Carolina. But state health officials say they are worried about cases that are going unreported, and about the spread of the virus to schools and urgent care clinics this week.

The jury awarded a family $3 million in the closely-watched case over Facebook and YouTube addiction.

As extreme heat becomes a year-round reality, California is often still responding like it’s an emergency.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has positioned himself as a national public health leader by staking out science-backed policies in contrast with the Trump administration.

California is battling measles outbreaks across seven counties as federal funding cuts gut local health departments and vaccine skepticism fuels spread among unvaccinated children.

Despite state vaccine requirements, many southwest Oregon counties and schools aren’t reaching immunization levels needed for herd immunity.

Starting in 2025, California tortillas will contain folic acid to help prevent birth defects—a change aimed at closing a gap for Latina mothers.

Whether federal cuts are legal is still undecided. But local health departments have closed clinics, stopped programs, cut immunization appointments, and laid off workers anyway.

Overdose deaths in Oregon went down 22% in 2024, the Oregon Health Authority announced on Friday. The decrease follows a nationwide trend of declining overdose deaths.

For 55 years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has sent specialized teams of trained medical detectives into workplaces to investigate what could be making workers sick — everything from dust, fungus, asbestos and radiation. Now, dozens of these ongoing investigations have been canceled.

It’s an especially bad flu season, and whooping cough — or pertussis — is also causing many infections.

California officials have declared a state of emergency over the spread of bird flu, which is tearing through dairy cows in that state and causing sporadic illnesses in people in the U.S. That raises new questions about the virus, which has spread for years in wild birds, commercial poultry and many mammal species.