Health & Wellness News

A panel of young people, ranging from middle-school-aged to college, shared their thoughts on mental health and health care in a conference organized by Lehigh Valley Reilly Children's Hospital. They all had one thing in common — direct experience.

The mayors of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton will participate in group bike rides for Lehigh Valley Bike to Work Week.

If you get a special card in the mail, it means your mailperson can pick up food donations from your home, and take it straight to the food bank.

Lehigh Valley high school students had the opportunity to see firsthand what it's like to be a nurse. A nursing simulation was held during National Nurses Week.

A plan two years in the making is proving to be successful in Allentown. Nurses for the city and the district worked together to make sure students are safe from preventable disease.

Mattel has marketed a Barbie doll that represents those with Down syndrome.

The Palmer Recovery Center is the site of a free trauma-informed yoga class every Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. The class helps veterans with their mental health struggles.

The U.S. surgeon general issued a public health advisory about loneliness, isolation and lack of connection. The health consequences are enormous — equivalent by some estimates to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Lehigh Valley Mental Health Awareness Walk offers the public education and resources. Behavioral health needs are growing.

The $25,000 fund, offered by Lehigh and Northampton counties, will be used to support the schools' Aevidum program.

Lehigh Valley Health Network names two new presidents in their system. One is the President of the Lehigh Valley Hospital Cedar Crest campus and the Lehigh Region. The other is the President of the LVH–Muhlenberg campus and the Northampton Region.

Local health networks agree the virus is still here, still harmful. Another vaccine could help.

Legislators worked to establish penalties for xylazine use and trafficking in an attempt to lessen its presence in Pennsylvania's illicit drug supply. Some say doing so made way for a new, unclassified veterinary tranquilizer to take its place — medetomidine.

The tax and spending plan drew praise from Republicans for lowering taxes and funding border security, but Democrats condemned it for slashing Medicaid coverage and raising the deficit.

Nearly a year after the Biden administration designated xylazine as an "emerging threat" to the United States, Gov. Josh Shapiro classified it as a schedule III drug, making unauthorized possession a crime in Pennsylvania. Experts say the move has partly served to clear the way for new illicit substances to enter the drug market.

Proposed federal budget cuts would impact programs such as the free summer meal program for children in the Allentown School District.

The $2.75 million payment to the federal government resolves allegations that a pharmacy technician stole controlled substances on about 40 occasions and the health network failed to institute proper controls.

Despite not being approved for human consumption, veterinary tranquilizers are infiltrating the illicit drug supply in Pennsylvania. Harm reduction specialists and health care professionals say these overdoses can't be approached solely with naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.

A generous donation from a Lehigh Valley native and others funds free swim lessons for children and adults in the River Crossing YMCA's Safety Around Water, or SAW, swim education program.

The bill would limit the manufacture, sale, distribution and use of firefighting foam containing PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, beginning in 2026.

Xylazine, an animal-grade tranquilizer that's not approved for human use, has taken Pennsylvania's illicit drug supply by storm. Known on the streets as "tranq," it accounted for almost 1 in 4 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania by 2023. Last year in Lehigh County, it was a contributing cause of death in 20 of the 112 deadly overdoses, or 17.9 percent of cases.

The funding comes from the commonwealth’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Known as "tranq" on the streets, an animal tranquilizer named xylazine infiltrated drug supplies throughout Pennsylvania since 2019. Its presence in the Lehigh Valley has grown, with deadly consequences.

A regionwide wastewater plan and a hazard mitigation plan both advanced with staff review approvals by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission on Thursday night.