General

Here you will find topics ranging from current events that affect public health in Arizona to overall information about the Arizona Department of Health Services

Car Seat Collection Launch

By |2017-02-10T09:49:51-07:00February 11th, 2014|General|

The child safety seat exchange program we established as cooperative partnership via the Arizona-Mexico Commission last summer is moving forward.  We’ve established a new partnership with Rural Metro and Southwest Ambulance to serve as collection sites for people who want to donate their gently used car seat that will be donated to families in Sonora.  [...]

Food for the Olympians

By |2017-02-10T09:49:51-07:00February 7th, 2014|General|

As the Olympics begin, Chef and Registered Dietitian Allen Tran’s words come to mind, “nutrition can make a good athlete great or a great athlete good”. I think his view holds some truth for all of us. Allen knows because he is the High-Performance Chef for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. He is in [...]

New Medical Marijuana Rules Up for Public Comment

By |2017-02-10T09:49:52-07:00February 5th, 2014|General|

Last summer a Superior Court judge decided that a portion of our medical marijuana regulations are unreasonable because our regulations didn’t have a process for dispensary registration certificate holders to renew their dispensary registration certificate if they didn't earn their approval to operate within 1 year.   This week we posted new draft rules (and an Online Survey to get [...]

Heroin: The Sleepy Killer

By |2017-02-10T09:49:53-07:00February 4th, 2014|General|

I’ve written several posts about how prescription painkillers kill more Arizonans than heroin and cocaine combined- but heroin is still the No. 1 killer among the illegal drugs.   One hundred people died from a heroin overdose in AZ in 2013 (vs. about 1,000 from prescription drugs).  Heroin is very addictive.  According to NIDA, about 23% of people that try heroin will become [...]

Now Accepting Applications for Loan Repayment Programs

By |2017-02-10T09:49:53-07:00January 30th, 2014|General|

Getting access to primary care providers is critical to disease prevention.  The problem is that there aren’t enough primary care providers nationwide.  Arizona is short by about 300 primary care physicians, 250 dentists and about 70 psychiatrists. That’s why Arizona has been aggressive in their efforts to recruit providers to work in Arizona, specifically in [...]

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Public Health Initiatives for Refugees in AZ

By |2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 28th, 2014|General|

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 [...]

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Our Most Popular Annual Report Goes Mobile

By |2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 27th, 2014|General|

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 [...]

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Influenza is Widespread in Arizona

By |2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 24th, 2014|General|

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 [...]

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Medical Marijuana News

By |2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 17th, 2014|General, Licensing|

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 [...]

Public Health Poem to end the Year

By |2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00December 27th, 2013|General|

The Ambulance Down In The Valley A Poem About Public Health Prevention by Joseph Malins (1895)   'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed, though to walk near its crest was so pleasant; but over its terrible edge there had slipped a duke and full many a peasant. So the people said something would [...]

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