More are born too early and too small. Children's teeth are rotting. They are fat from too much junk food and too much juice. They are neglected, abused or exposed to cigarette smoke or drugs. Asthma makes it hard for them to breathe.
Lead poisoning is epidemic in poor neighborhoods.
But these problems pale in comparison with the apparent trend of behavioral problems among very young children and a lack of services to help them. Ford is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the Health Center. The report was commissioned by the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut, which was created two years ago to promote primary and preventive health care by focusing on improving health care delivery systems. The institute, established with money that became available when Newington Children's Hospital closed and the region's pediatric care merged under the umbrella of Connecticut Children's Medical Center, presented a report last year for overhauling the state's system of dealing with troubled children. For that report, researchers examined individual cases of children who had been left behind by the state's mental health system.