The new Surgeon General’s report on smoking called The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General adds diabetes, colorectal and liver cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, age-related macular degeneration, and other conditions to the list of diseases that cigarette smoking causes. The report (released this week) concludes that secondhand [...]
Last year 3,663 refugees resettled in Arizona from 45 different countries (about 1/3 were from Iraq). Refugees have a variety of pressing social, economic and health needs when they arrive. That’s where our ADHS Refugee Health Program comes in. Our Refugee Health Coordinator, Zachary Holden, works with partners to ensure that refugees arrive healthy and maintain good [...]
HB 2036 was passed and signed during the 2012 legislative session… tasking the ADHS with several things related to the regulation of abortions. Among them were requirements for us to: 1) Develop a parental informed consent form for minors seeking an abortion; 2) Establish a website with information identified in the Statute; and 3) Require [...]
Every year our most popular annual report (it’s not even close) is called the Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report. We released the 2012 Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report this week- and this time it’s mobile friendly so can pull it up on your IPad, IPhone and other Android devices. The document contains hotlinks and [...]
The popular MTV TV shows called 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom appear to be contributing to declines in the U.S. teen birth rate according to new research released this week by economists at the University of Maryland and Wellesley College. 16 and Pregnant is essentially a documentary series focusing on teen pregnancy. Each episode [...]
Influenza has been steadily spreading in Arizona over the last few weeks and this week we hit the Widespread Influenza threshold. In fact, the number of cases increased by 50% this week- and several Arizona emergency departments are backed up with substantial wait times. CDC’s report is due to come out Friday… but I’d guess that most states will [...]
Good question. Disasters and public health emergencies can stress health care systems to the breaking point and disrupt delivery of vital medical services. For example- hospitals and long-term care facilities may be without power; trained staff, ambulances, medical supplies, and beds could be in short supply; and alternate care facilities may need to be used. [...]
The first link in the chain of survival during a public health disaster is people taking responsibility for their own family’s safety. Being prepared at home is the first line of defense. Families that have family members with special needs sometimes need to have more detailed plans to ensure that their needs will be met [...]
Can you picture 6.4 trillion calories? That’s the number of fewer calories sold by 16 major food companies in the last 5 years. The companies include names like Campbell’s Soup and the Coca-Cola Company. All are part of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation and have pledged to remove calories from their products as a public [...]
We published our mid-year update of the medical marijuana annual report this week. It contains different data than our standard annual report in that we’re reporting aggregate dispensary transaction data. In the report you’ll see that there were about 422,000 transactions made at dispensaries in ‘13 among the 40,000 patients (about 10 transactions/patient/year). Dispensaries sold [...]
