The Sonoran Desert will be among the hottest places on the globe for the next 4 months. The heat on the desert floor isn’t just a nuisance, it’s expensive & lethal. Do you know what to do to protect yourself and your family? Do you follow through? Year in and year out, nearly 1,400 Arizonans [...]
Did you know that Special Olympics’ Healthy Athletes Program is the largest health care provider for people with intellectual disabilities in the world? Although “health” and “athletics” tend to be two topics that are believed to go hand in hand—that is not always the case, as Special Olympics leaders became aware of over the years. [...]
Guest blog by: Karen Lewis, M.D., Medical Director of the Immunization Program Office of the Arizona Department of Health Services. Tobacco use is the world's leading single preventable cause of death. Every year, tobacco-related illnesses cause about 500,000 deaths in the United States. Children start smoking early. Every year, there are about 400,000 new daily [...]
The American Academy of Pediatrics updated their car safety recommendations in the April issue of Pediatrics advising parents to keep their toddlers in rear-facing car seats until 2 (or until they reach the maximum height and weight for their seat for big kids). They also recommend that most children should be in a belt-positioning booster [...]
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, [...]
The Legislature completed the Regular Session a couple of weeks ago, and Monday marked the deadline for the Governor to make her decision about each bill that came to her desk: sign the bill into law, veto the bill, or do nothing and let the bill become law. Last week I summarized the new laws [...]
ADHS and ADOA will be working together over the next several months to get Arizona State Government to become the 1st government entity in the nation to meet the American Cancer Society’s CEO Cancer Gold Standard Program criteria. Our objective is to set the standard for excellence in the prevention, early detection, and effective management of cancer [...]
Title V of the Social Security Act is the longest-standing public health legislation in America. Over the past 75 years, the Title V Maternal & Child Health Block Grant has supported a number of efforts in Arizona which have contributed to improved immunization rates, declining infant mortality and more comprehensive services for children with special health care [...]
A new issue brief from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) offers states suggestions on how to better coordinate and integrate home visitation programs to improve early childhood initiatives. Maximizing the Impact of State Early Childhood Home Visitation Programs examines how states can better integrate home visiting programs into an effective [...]
Our Fit and Fifty HealthCheck program encourages and provides resources for uninsured and underinsured folks to get screened for colorectal cancer. The program is funded by the CDC and a special tobacco tax. The program is available in Maricopa, Pima and Coconino and includes access to a fecal occult blood test and colonoscopy. To use [...]
