General

Stress can have a profound impact on health and affects your body, thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  Symptoms like chronic headaches, insomnia, and lower productivity can be a direct result of stress.  Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can give you a jump on managing them.  Stress management is important, because, left unchecked, it can [...]

When I started working at our agency in 1992 (doing risk assessments for state superfund sites) I never dreamed that one day I’d have the honor of serving as the agency director.  Quite honestly, I never had a goal of being the director- but somehow it just happened.  This has been an awesome job.    [...]

One of the services we sometimes take for granted is mail service.  At ADHS we have a small mailroom, staffed by Susan Barnes and Meredith Chernov, who processes mail sent through the US Postal Department and the inter-office mail between state offices. In 2014 our mailroom processed over 1,000,000 pieces of outgoing US mail for [...]

Leaders across Borders (LaB) is an advanced leadership development program funded by the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission.  The idea is to build bi-national leadership capacity of public health, health care, and other community sectors to improve the health of communities in the U.S.- México border region.  Right now (and through February 13) we’re looking for [...]

Over the last couple of years, we’ve been working with partners using data collected by the U of A to stem the tide of lower vaccination rates in Arizona schools.  Last year’s initiatives included implementation of our Action Plan to Address Vaccine Exemptions which included updating the vaccine exemption form (which reinforces to parents know [...]

With all the news about Arizona’s measles outbreak, I’m sure you’ve heard just how important vaccination is for our community.  Public health agencies study vaccine coverage data to understand how well communities are protected from preventable disease and to make targeted decisions about how to contain an outbreak. For example, if there’s a disease outbreak [...]

Last fall I wrote about how contagious Ebola is compared to other diseases, using a mathematical calculation called R0 (R naught).  R0  is a tool we use in epidemiology to estimate the average number of people one sick person will infect.  The R0  for measles is off the charts.  It has one of the highest R0 [...]