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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Arizona is on a great trajectory for success if you go by baby names. The most popular boy’s name in 2013 was Liam which means strong-willed warrior and the most popular girl’s name – Sophia – means wisdom. Liam, a form of the name William, jumped to first place from fourth last year, but it [...]
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