General – Page 42 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Please Help Supply Blessing Bags

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:50-07:00February 20th, 2014|General|

Patients and Staff at the Arizona State Hospital are working with the Phoenix Rescue Mission again this year to create Blessing Bags. They're large gallon sized Ziploc bags filled with basic necessities which will be handed out by the Phoenix Rescue Mission to the homeless. But they need some donations to get going. The Hospital team [...]

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Arizona’s First Ever State Health Assessment

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:50-07:00February 13th, 2014|General|

Today we published Arizona’s first ever comprehensive State Health Assessment. The objective of the State Health Assessment is to give Arizona’s public health and health care systems a clear tool to help drive future decision-making and resource allocation as we collectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes across Arizona. The [...]

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Car Seat Collection Launch

By Will Humble|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. [...]

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Food for the Olympians

By Will Humble|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 [...]

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New Medical Marijuana Rules Up for Public Comment

By Will Humble|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 [...]

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Heroin: The Sleepy Killer

By Will Humble|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 [...]

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Now Accepting Applications for Loan Repayment Programs

By Will Humble|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 Will Humble|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 Will Humble|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 Will Humble|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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