General – Page 32 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

1st AZ Influenza Case Kicks Off Surveillance Season

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:26-07:00November 10th, 2014|General|

Influenza season officially arrived last week when our Arizona State Public Health Laboratory confirmed the 1st AZ-acquired influenza case for the 2014-2015 season. Although flu activity is monitored year-round in Arizona, the start of the season intensifies our statewide surveillance activities. Partners across the state (including local health departments, laboratories and healthcare providers) participate by reporting [...]

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Federal Program Helps Recruit Doctors in Underserved Areas

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:27-07:00October 30th, 2014|General|

Arizona needs more doctors to help take care of our residents’ various health issues but we are challenged with recruiting enough especially in the rural communities. The National Health Service Corps has a program called the Student to Service Loan Repayment Program which is designed to attract newly trained physicians to work in rural, underserved [...]

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City Health Commissioners Raise Awareness of Prescription Drug Overdose

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:27-07:00October 29th, 2014|General|

The National Association of City and County Health Officers Big Cities Health Coalition recently held a standing-room-only Congressional briefing on prescription drug abuse and overdose. The briefing focused on local policy successes, challenges, and solutions to help save lives. Click here to learn more about the Big Cities Health Coalition, projects they are currently engaged [...]

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Vital Records & Same Gender Marriage

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:27-07:00October 27th, 2014|General|

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Arizona began recognizing same gender marriages (as an outcome of a recent federal court case). The court decision will influence some of the things that we do in our Vital Records shop - mostly as we process of death certificates. Arizona law specifies the people that can get [...]

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2014 AIDS Walk

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:27-07:00October 24th, 2014|General|

HIV/AIDS affects or infects over 15,000 people in the state of Arizona. HIV has become a chronic disease, one that can be managed, which means most people are not dying of AIDS. However, there are still a lot of difficulties associated with being HIV positive. The prescriptions alone can be expensive and the side effects [...]

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Vaccines- Calling the Shots

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 23rd, 2014|General|

Every time a different disease surfaces in the news like MERS, Ebola or Enterovirus D 68, one of the first questions people ask is, “Is there a vaccine for it?” A new documentary created for NOVA on PBS – Vaccines – Calling the Shots recently outlined the history of vaccines and the possibility of vaccine-preventable diseases [...]

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Ebola Toolkits

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 20th, 2014|General|

One of the roles we play in any outbreak is making sure that our partners in the state have all the information they need to respond to a situation and be safe in that response. I’ve posted about our continuing education of those partners, but now we’ve created a one-page stop for partner. Our Ebola [...]

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Plague over the Centuries

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 15th, 2014|General|

Ring around the roseies, A pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes! We all fall down! In 1348, London was 4 million strong, but within 2.5 years a third of those had “fallen down.” The streets were narrow and cramped, often piled ankle deep with human and animal waste. The putrid smell contaminated everything in the [...]

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New Draft Medical Marijuana Regulations Out for Public Comment

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 15th, 2014|General|

For the last few months we’ve been reviewing our medical marijuana rules to make changes to them in response to an Arizona Superior Court judge’s decision. In addition to the changes needed to comply with the Court’s ruling, also proposing other changes to the medical marijuana rules that affect qualifying patients, caregivers, and dispensaries that [...]

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Help Your Health & Wallet

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:28-07:00October 9th, 2014|General|

If you’re a “benefits eligible” state employee, you now have a new opportunity to improve your health and your wallet. This week Benefit Options Wellness launched a new health initiative called the Health Impact Program (HIP). It’s a point-based incentive program that encourages participation in a variety of wellness activities, while logging progress toward a [...]

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