The students manning the phones at the Hebrew Center on this January night are there to kick off the first night of the 2006 SafeRides season. The student-run program provides a free and confidential ride home to any student of the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School who is not in a condition to drive safely or who wants to avoid being a passenger with an unsafe driver.

The Vineyard's first tularemia case of the year, a 50-year-old male landscaper, may have contracted the potentially fatal disease after handling a dead rabbit he found while working in Edgartown, state public health officials said this week.

One year after unveiling plans for the costliest construction project and most ambitious fund-raising goal in Vineyard history, leaders at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital announced this week that they have amassed a stunning $20 million in pledged donations, nearly half the $42 million needed to build a new hospital at the Linton Lane campus in Oak Bluffs.

If recent health data is accurate, suggesting that the rate of problem or binge drinking on the Vineyard significantly exceeds the nationwide averages, then it should come as no surprise that Vineyard House is bursting at the seams.

The Island's growing population of Brazilian immigrants came here in large part to better their economic condition, but a study released last week shows that in many cases the endeavor is taking a serious toll on their health.

The trappings of a resort community may be the Vineyard's bread and butter, but the flipside - the seasonality, the economic pressures, a housing market far out of reach of most working people and even the private beaches - may be the ingredients underlying rates of depression, substance abuse and suicide that are higher than the state and even national averages.