Posts Tagged ‘asthma’

Guide to Community Prevention Services

October 3rd, 2012

Every so often- you run into a resource guide that stands above the rest.  I discovered one of those a couple of weeks ago when I was at a conference with the people in my job from around the country.  It’s called the Guide to Community Preventive Services – and it’s a free resource to help you choose programs and policies to improve health and prevent disease in communities.  The easy to read resource guide answers questions like: 1) Which program and policy interventions have been proven effective; 2) Are there effective interventions that are right for my community; and 3) What might effective interventions cost and what’s the return on investment? 

There are modules on different public health topics- and the evidence-based information is printed in colorful, easy-to-read formats.  Subjects include much of our core strategic plan activities in health and wellness including: Adolescent Health; Alcohol; Asthma; Birth Defects; Cancer; Cardiovascular Disease; Diabetes; Emergency Preparedness; Health Communication; Health Equity; HIV/AIDS,STD’s, Pregnancy; Mental Health; Motor Vehicle Injury; Nutrition; Obesity; Oral Health; Physical Activity; Social Environment; Tobacco Use; Vaccines; Violence; and Worksites.  Learn more about The Community Guide, collaborators involved in its development and dissemination, and methods used to conduct the systematic reviews.

No comments »

Posted in Prevention

Tags:

Biomedical Roadmap

February 21st, 2012

A decade ago, AZ launched a plan to create an internationally competitive bioscience sector.  This roadmap is the long-term plan to combine leaders in business, basic sciences & research, and political entities in order to create an infrastructure and climate that would be ideal to propel AZ forward in the biosciences. 

The Flinn Foundation invested in this mission and hired Battelle to create this plan or roadmap.  The report recommended specific areas of focus for short-term growth in 3-5 years (bioengineering, cancer research, neurosciences, and bio-imaging) that needed to be implemented.  They also identified other areas for long-term growth (agricultural biotech, asthma, diabetes, and infectious disease) over the next 5-10 years that would help strengthen AZ’s medical research base and create new jobs that would be safe from cyclical fluctuations in the economic market.  This implementation effort is being led by the steering committee. 

The core of the initiative: 1) builds research infrastructure; 2) develops a critical mass of firms and new cutting edge businesses;  3) enhances the business environment to generate funding; and 4) prepares the workforce with educational initiatives www.azbiobasics.com. 

The latest status report on the roadmap shows major progress (95%) on the goals in the last 10 years.  Bioscience employment in AZ increased 32%, the number of firms has grown 28%, wages in bioscience fields have increased 47%, NIH funding grew 65% faster than other states, and R&D expenditures by academic research institutions grew 52%.  Venture capital investment dropped 11%, however the entrepreneurial initiatives to license and patent intellectual property increased steadily.  Check out the full report, Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap Performance Assessment 2002-11 and a calendar of upcoming events at www.flinn.org.  The list of organizations involved in bioscience can be found at www.azbiobasics.com.

No comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Multiple Chronic Conditions- an Expensive Public Health Threat

October 17th, 2011

I’ve written several pieces over the last few weeks highlighting our efforts to better integrate primary healthcare into the treatment plans for folks with mental illnesses- but the issue of providing better coordinated care for folks with multiple chronic medical conditions is really far bigger than this integration issue.  More than 25% of Americans have multiple chronic conditions like arthritis, asthma, chronic respiratory conditions, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.  Treating folks with multiple conditions is both complicated and expensive- and more coordinated efforts are a key to improving both.  In fact, 66% of all health care spending in the US goes toward caring for the 27% of folks with co-occurring chronic medical conditions. 

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) knows full well that better care coordination for these folks is critical if the nation is going to do a better job of improving health care efficiency and containing costs.  There are a number of efforts underway to address these issues- many of which are summarized in a strategic framework document that HHS put out a few months ago called Multiple Chronic Conditions: A Strategic Framework.  The framework is just that- an outline of a strategy- and it includes a vision statement, goals, objectives, and discrete strategies to guide HHS in coordinating its efforts internally and collaborating with stakeholders externally. 

By the way, our tobacco & chronic disease team is leading the state’s efforts to help folks better manage their illness.  One of their tools is the Stanford Chronic Disease Self Management Program- which is an evidence-based program which empowers folks to recognize and address the factors which impact their chronic conditions.  Through Healthy Living, individuals can develop and implement personalized action plans, take ownership, and achieve improved health outcomes that are both manageable and sustainable.  Our team (under the leadership of Ramona Rusinak) and the Arizona Living Well Institute has identified this as a core element of its overall strategic direction.

No comments »

Posted in Prevention

Tags:

Healthy Homes

September 14th, 2011

For decades, removing lead (Pb) from the environment has been a public health priority because residual contamination from decades of using products containing harmful lead continued to cause health problems.  Fortunately, the public health interventions (removing Pb from gas, paint, and cans) worked and today 99.9% of Arizona kids have blood lead levels below the standard.  As a result, the CDC has been phasing out childhood lead poisoning prevention programs and replacing them with a new initiative called Healthy Homes.    

We found out last week that our Office of Environmental Health will begin developing a Healthy Homes Program for of Arizona. This fall, our new Arizona Healthy Homes Program will build and enhance relationships with housing and environmental health programs throughout the state to reduce housing related health concerns, such as childhood lead poisoning, asthma, allergies and unintended injuries, by increasing the number of healthy homes for our most vulnerable and underserved communities.  The first year will be spent working with partners to perform a needs assessment to determine which housing related health hazards pose the greatest risk to Arizonans.  Stay Tuned.

1 comment »

Posted in General, Prevention

Tags: