epidemiology

Partners Exercise Response Plans During a Hepatitis A Outbreak Scenario

By |2017-08-03T09:31:32-07:00August 3rd, 2017|Preparedness|

Our Food and Waterborne Teams in the Office of Infectious Disease Services led a foodborne outbreak investigation tabletop exercise for almost 110 public health partners last week. Individuals in attendance came from tribal and county health departments, hospitals, state universities, and federal agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  This year’s all-day exercise explored [...]

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Update: More Progress on Addressing Arizona Opioid Epidemic

By |2017-06-23T11:58:03-07:00June 23rd, 2017|Prevention|

ADHS continues to work with partners to respond to the opioid emergency in Arizona, concluding our third week in the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC). The teamwork across many areas has resulted in another week of significant accomplishments. This week, we wrapped up our first week of data collection under the Governor’s executive order for [...]

Selected 2015 Infectious Disease Stats

By |2017-02-10T09:49:01-07:00February 1st, 2016|Preparedness|

This is the time of year when we start closing out all of our infectious disease data from the previous year. That means our epidemiology and data entry staff will be hard at work to identify potential duplicate cases, make sure reported disease cases are classified correctly and similarly between the state and local health [...]

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Addressing environmental health concerns in the community

By |2017-02-10T09:49:08-07:00September 30th, 2015|General|

Every year our Environmental Toxicology program responds to environmental health concerns and provides communities with epidemiologic and toxicological health assessments. Recently a community member from the town of Superior brought up concerns that contamination from past mining activities could be affecting the health of residents. Superior is a small mining town with a population of [...]

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Making a Public Health Difference

By |2012-11-20T09:45:06-07:00November 20th, 2012|General|

In public health, we don’t gather data just for the sake of gathering data.  Our goal is use that data to see what kind of issues there are, look for programs that are proven to reduce bad outcomes and help the communities implement them. One key area we watch is Maternal and Child Health because making changes [...]

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Introducing Our New Licensing Director & Agency CMO

By |2017-02-10T09:51:03-07:00August 22nd, 2012|Licensing|

Please join me in welcoming Cara Christ, MD as our new Division of Licensing Services chief.  Cara has agreed to share her talents as the new Assistant Director for Licensing as well as serving as the Agency Chief Medical Officer.  Also, thanks a million to Colby Bower who's been doing an excellent job serving as interim director for licensing since Alan [...]

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ADHS’ Disease Detectives

By |2017-02-10T09:51:06-07:00July 25th, 2012|Prevention|

Awhile back, our epidemiology and licensing team of disease detectives including Jason Lempp, Cara Christ, Vinita Oberoi, Jessica Rigler, Ken Komatsu, Kathy McCanna, Connie Belden, Ken Komatsu, and Shoana Anderson learned of a severe case of a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus  (MRSA) through our 24-hour disease reporting system.  Our team quickly contacted the county public health department which immediately began an [...]

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Influenza Wave Coming Ashore

By |2012-03-09T09:33:59-07:00March 9th, 2012|Preparedness, Prevention|

It took longer than usual- but Influenza is finally circulating in AZ- and we’ve moved to the “Regional” flu category now (Regional is sort of the middle of the scale).  The circulating strains in AZ (confirmed by our lab) are covered by this year’s vaccine- mostly our old friend the 2009 H1N1 virus and the familiar H3N2 [...]

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Valley Fever Week

By |2017-02-10T09:51:27-07:00November 4th, 2011|General|

This is Valley Fever Awareness Week- an annual event to provide awareness  of coccidioidomycosis (also known as Valley Fever)- the second most commonly reported infectious disease in Arizona.  Events for the general public include a “Learn about Valley Fever – Ask the Doctor Your Questions” held in Tucson on Sunday, Nov. 6 and the Walk for Valley Fever in Sun [...]

Contagion

By |2017-02-10T09:51:35-07:00September 9th, 2011|General, Preparedness, Prevention|

In all my years in public health this is the first crack I’ve taken at being a movie critic- so give me a little slack on this one.  I checked out the new movie called Contagion- and really liked it. I won’t give up too much information and spoil the film, but it’s basically a fictional [...]

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