Our Licensing team routinely analyzes the most frequent and important deficiencies that we observe and posts the data on our website. We use the data to help educate the folks that we license… and to identify good topics for provider training and technical assistance (public health interventions). For example, our medical facilities licensing team has found that infection control [...]
Our Vital Records shop does a lot more than manage the State’s birth and death certificate system (which we’ve been doing since 1885). We’re also an integral part of the Nation’s Vital Statistics System, which serves as the backbone of national data sharing in public health. The data collected under the National Vital Statistics System works [...]
Medicine and public health have relied on peer-reviewed published scientific literature to help guide progress in patient treatment and public health interventions for decades- even centuries. For example, when we did the fact-finding to inform our decision about whether to add the petitioned conditions to the list of disorders that qualify for AZ medical marijuana cards- [...]
When it comes to microbes- the whooping cough (pertussis) is a contrarian. Unlike most other pathogens- it does better in the summer than the winter. While most other infectious diseases are on the wane right now- whooping cough is whooping it up. We’ve been seeing an increase in whooping cough cases in Arizona this summer- [...]
Robert Koch was a German physician that’s considered one of the primary founders of microbiology- setting the foundation for loads of public health interventions that have drastically improved our quality of life. He was the first scientist to verify the Germ Theory of Disease (in 1876) by showing that anthrax is caused by a bacteria [...]
Life expectancy improved by more than 30 years in the US during the 20th Century. Advances in diagnosis and treatment of disease have played a role, but the real reason we’re living longer today has a lot more to do with public health interventions than advances in health care. Interventions like vaccines, motor vehicle safety, [...]
