In 1878, the General Assembly established a State Board of Health mandated to "take cognizance of the interests of health and life" of the people of Connecticut. It made sanitary investigations to inquire into and report on the causes of disease and the sources of mortality. It distributed sanitary information to local boards of health and compiled data submitted by these boards. It also had supervision of birth, death, and marriage registrations. Today the Department of Public Health is the State's lead agency in public health policy and advocacy. Its major program areas include prevention/education, regulation, planning, emergency medical services, and local health administration. The records contain materials from the first secretary to the board, Dr. Charles W. Chamberlain, 1878-83, and include correspondence, town surveys, railroad worker eye tests (1880), divorces, minutes of the board, and speeches made by Dr. Chamberlain. Dates for some of these go beyond 1883. More modern records include minutes, scrapbooks, annual reports and administrative files of the now defunct Tuberculosis Commission, minutes of the Connecticut Advisory School Health Council, 1958-71; Cedar Hill Hospital patient registers, 1910-54; commissioner's scrapbooks, 1919-71; minutes of the Community Nursing and Home Health Care Division, 1900-80; Coordinator's records of the Commission on Long Term Care, 1980-91; the Tumor Registry, Medical Registration Applications, 1893-1976; minutes of various licensing boards, 1893-1991; annual reports of directors of local health departments, 1931-79; Bureau of Laboratories, 1943-56; and meeting folders of the Commission on Hospitals and Health Care, 1974-87.
