"Early intervention can save lives, and with this funding, we are helping more children battling mental illness get on the path towards recovery," Governor Cuomo said. "This program will reach our youngest New Yorkers so that they have access to the services and support that they need for success later in life." 

These embedded child and family development professionals, known as Healthy Steps Specialists, will work with children from birth to age 5 to detect and monitor emerging behavioral and developmental issues, educate families about child development, help them implement healthy parenting practices, and link children and families to behavioral or developmental specialists when needed. In tandem with pediatricians and family medicine providers, this program will engage both the child and family during routine early-life doctor visits and provide screening services for the entire family, including screenings for maternal depression, developmental delays, and childhood traumas that often lead to emotional or chronic medical problems later in life. These enhanced early-life visits will offer an opportunity for families to find support in an accessible and non-stigmatizing environment. Read more here.

Health outcomes and health factors do not get combined into one score. Outcomes tend to reflect a reality at the time data is collected. Factors tend to reflect areas that could be affected by policy and include rates of smoking; physical inactivity; excessive drinking; access to medical care; crime, income and poverty; and air and water quality, housing problems and commute time.

Yet in the midst of the worst epidemic of unintentional drug overdose in U.S. history - mortality rates are four to fives times as high as in the mid-1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - it can be harder to get drugs to treat an addiction than it is to get the drugs that feed it.

More than 28,000 Americans died from heroin and painkiller overdoses in 2014, according to the CDC. But fewer than half of the 2.2 million people who need treatment for opioid addiction are receiving it, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said as President Obama's latest budget was released last month.

Peter Shumlin (D-Vt.) was among the first governors to address the opioid epidemic, devoting his entire State of the State address to the crisis in 2014. Since then, his administration and many of Vermont's private-practice doctors have made treatment more available than it is in most of the country.

Despite that, almost 500 addicts in this state of 626,000 people are on waiting lists to receive medication for opioid dependence. More than half will wait close to a year.

Nationwide, a shortage of doctors willing to prescribe buprenorphine, which reduces drug cravings, and a federal limit on the number of patients each doctor can treat, prevents many who could benefit from the medication from getting it.  Read more here.

Addiction medicine is defined as the prevention of the risky use of substances, including nicotine, alcohol, prescription medications and other licit and illicit drugs, and the evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and management of the disease of addiction and related health conditions. Physicians specializing in this field also help family members whose health and functioning are affected by a loved one's substance use or addiction.  Read more here.