Last week we awarded 4 community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program funds to prevent teen pregnancy in AZ. The funding we’ll be passing through to our new contractors is part of the Affordable Care Act- and requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception as ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs. All [...]
The death of any child is a tragedy – for the family and for the community. Almost 20 years ago, an idea was created to systematically review all child deaths in order to find ways to prevent similar deaths going forward. In past years this focus has raised the awareness about child drowning or the [...]
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 [...]
We had a very nice Open House event for the new Arizona State Forensic Units yesterday. The new facility will be a huge help and will be much more conducive to helping our patients on their recovery path. It’ll also really improve the working conditions for our dedicated staff- and will make their mission to help our patients easier. [...]
In less than a month (Nov. 4) thousands of people from a variety of response agencies will be testing their plans and coordinating response efforts for the Vigilant Guard exercise- which will allow us to practice what we would do during a disaster. One of our main tasks will be medical surge management. Medical surge [...]
Ever since 911, there’s been an increased understanding that a strong disaster emergency and evacuation plan is required for any line of business. Child care is no exception. Over the last few months, our Child Care Licensing shop took the lead to develop and provide information and training to Arizona child care providers in effective short- and [...]
The Listeria monocytogenes outbreak has captured the public’s attention these days- so I thought I’d do a piece on Arizona’s food safety network. Let’s start at the farm & ranch. The Arizona Department of Agriculture is responsible for ensuring that the base of the food safety pyramid is solid in Arizona. They have several divisions that are [...]
Arizona Smokers' Helpline, the University of Arizona, Mel and Enid Zuckerman, and the College of Public Health will present a free CME conference "Evidence-based Interventions for Tobacco Cessation in Populations with Mental Illness Challenges," Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. to behavioral health providers. The conference will take place at the [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about our new Home Baked and Confectionary Goods Program. Since then, the program has really taken off. About 700 people have registered with the program since we turned the key a few weeks ago, baking a variety of snacks, ranging from cookies and cupcakes to healthy goodies. Bakers who [...]
You probably heard that Steve Jobs- the former head of Apple died this week of pancreatic cancer. While pancreatic cancer is the 10th most common kind of cancer in the US, it’s the 4th most common cause of cancer death. It often has a poor prognosis partly because people often don’t have any symptoms until [...]
