We’re in one of the best times of year to live in the Northeast.

The leaves are changing, it’s cool enough to enjoy being outside without freezing, and apple cider donuts are everywhere.

Leaf-peeping enthusiasts say the Northeast is having an “elite” leaf season this year, so hopefully you’re all enjoying the beauty, too.

A head’s up: this week’s New York topic covers sexual assault. A content note appears before the section if you need to bypass it.

But first, an announcement:

We have another writer! Tamara Rissman will be covering Connecticut. She’s called CT home for almost 30 years (but her New York accent hasn’t gotten the memo). She’s an epidemiologist with a special interest in foodborne illnesses but is formally trained in a wide breadth of public health topics. She will be popping in each week to bring CT content.

Regional health “weather” report

Measles keeps climbing in New York and Pennsylvania

Last week a LOT of you asked for an update on what’s happening with measles in Pennsylvania, which has reported 1,286 measles cases this year as of October 19. It’s the state’s biggest outbreak in decades, leading to five confirmed deaths and a possible sixth. (There are now new measles death criteria by the state, so it’s under review.) Of those who got sick, only four people were vaccinated. While the numbers of sick people are still rising, this rise seems to be slowing, which is a hopeful sign.

Health care providers statewide administered more than 56,000 MMR vaccine doses in September, which is more than twice the usual monthly total. A CDC “disease detective” arrived through the agency’s Epi-Aid program to help assess the outbreak and the impact of vaccination. This is good news given the public dispute between the governor and RFK Jr. over the outbreak and how measles-associated deaths should be counted.

And as we all know, viruses don’t see borders. New York now has more than 162 cases, with the most on the Pennsylvania border.

The Seneca County Health Department conducted public health interviews and confirmed that at least one NY case is linked to the PA outbreak. The same happened in Maine back in February, when five cases were linked to a person who had traveled to PA.

But the only official way to know whether cases are linked across state borders is through genetic testing to see whether the same virus strain links the two outbreaks. Local vaccination efforts are also in full swing in New York counties like Otsego.

The rest of the Northeast is quieter. Isolated cases linked to international travel keep popping up. But because vaccination rates are so high in our NE states, the potential for spread is lower.

Fall allergies may be making you sneeze

Rochester was named the 5th worst place to live in the U.S. with pollen allergies this year, and I’m feeling it. In the late summer/early fall, weed pollens (like ragweed) and mold pop up in the Northeast. The first frost usually ends ragweed spread by mid-October, but mold lingers through November as wet leaves rot. After a hot summer and the recent rain, conditions are just right for it. And when heating systems come on, they can stir up allergens right as we start spending more time inside.

So is it allergies or a virus? Here’s how to tell:

If your allergy medications don’t feel like they’re working, they may be the wrong kind, or you may not be taking them correctly.

Respiratory season is underway

More and more flu tests in the Northeast are coming back positive. While levels are still low, we are certainly entering the season now. This is a few weeks earlier than normal.

Covid-19 levels are also lower than in the West Coast and the South but are likely hitting the peak. Some states are still increasing, but some have started to decrease. This should start going down regionally until another winter wave.

State and local updates

We’ve heard from many of you asking when we’ll bring YLE Northeast to your part of the region (or expand to the Midwest, the Northwest, and the South). We want this as much as you do! But it takes resources to make that happen. Paid subscribers, donors, and local partners are helping us get there. If you’re a community foundation, local health department, or philanthropist, reach out to [email protected]. We’d love to work with you to keep growing our team of on-the-ground experts.

Public health is all about prevention: Let’s stop bad health things before they happen. That thread runs through today’s three state and local updates.

Content note: The New York section discusses sexual assault. Resources are at the end.

New York State: Preventing sexual violence on college campuses

With the recent incidents at Cornell and the Fashion Institute of Technology, it seems not much has changed since a Columbia student carried her dorm mattress across campus for a school year to protest the university’s handling of her rape complaint.

Violence, including sexual violence, is not a “disease,” but it is a public health problem. In a 2024 survey, almost 1 in 2 women and 1 in 8 men in New York experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. It’s common, it spreads through social norms, and it has associated risk factors. For example:

• Identity: First-year students, especially women, LGBTQ+ people, and those with disabilities, face the highest risk during the fall “red zone” (the first few months of the school year).
• Environment: In a 2025 Cornell survey, most students who had nonconsensual sexual contact said alcohol or drugs were involved. This doesn’t mean substances cause assault, but the two can be intertwined. A state bill would close some gaps by asking if someone was able to consent rather than how they became intoxicated.

How big is the problem? Reports are only the tip of the iceberg. Campus climate surveys consistently find that far more students experience sexual violence than ever report it, often because of shame, fear of retaliation, or not knowing where to go. Of the reports that do reach Title IX offices, only about 16% also went to police in 2024.

Prevention works. Bystander programs like Green Dot have reduced violence. In a randomized trial, a resistance program for first-year university women nearly halved the rate of sexual assault over the following year.

New York City: Preventing high health care costs

Where you get care in the city can change the price by thousands of dollars. The city health department’s new health care accountability report shows how much prices negotiated between hospitals and insurers vary. At the lower end, average inpatient prices at NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public system, were 76% of Medicare rates. At the high end, New York-Presbyterian averaged more than three times Medicare.

The Lown Institute singled out some services with wide price variations across the city, including:

• C-section: $7,332 at St. Barnabas in the Bronx (with Emblem) versus $63,753 at NewYork-Presbyterian (with Healthfirst)
• Colonoscopy: $643 at Flushing Hospital versus $12,701 at NewYork-Presbyterian
• Low-complexity ER visit: $211 at Northwell versus $5,570 at NYU Langone

Although some hospitals claim high prices are necessary to offset low government reimbursement, higher prices don’t align with caring for more low-income patients. NYC Health + Hospitals serves a large share of New York City’s Medicaid and uninsured patients yet has the lowest negotiated inpatient rates among major systems. In contrast, NewYork-Presbyterian has the highest prices but serves disproportionately few Medicaid and uninsured patients.

Connecticut: CT DPH encourages residents to avoid vaping—”It’s Tox-Ick”

With the news from Selena Gomez, who said vaping really impacted her voice box, it’s worth noting that 1 in 2 (!) Connecticut high school students have tried an electronic vaping product. 1 in 3 have used one in the past 30 days.

Switching to vaping from smoking may help some people quit smoking and reduce exposure to harmful chemicals. (And harm reduction is real!) But vaping isn’t harmless. Most vapes contained some addictive nicotine along with other harmful substances.

Here’s what the research has shown:

• Nicotine can disrupt brain connections that control attention, learning, and susceptibility to addiction.
• Vaping nicotine can make symptoms of depression and anxiety worse and increase stress levels.

That’s why avoiding both smoking and vaping is the healthiest option.

But marketing, appealing flavors, social influences, and nicotine’s effects all contribute to youth vaping, so prevention messaging has plenty to compete with. That’s why you may start seeing an anti-vaping campaign from the Connecticut Department of Public Health called “It’s Tox-Ick” that uses dark humor (the best kind) and uncomfortable parallels between chemicals found in vaping products and everyday products we would never consider ingesting. What I love most is that it meets young people where they are with humor instead of a lecture.

Bottom line

Across topics like respiratory illness, sexual violence, and vaping, prevention is key to keeping our communities safe and healthy.

Love,

The YLE NE team

Julia Tellerman, MPH, is an epidemiologist in Rochester, NY. Asuka Koda is a health journalist in New Haven, CT. Tamara Rissman, MPH, is an epidemiologist and professor in New Haven, CT.