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
We’re happy to unveil the new Arizona WIC Program website, which has been redesigned with a fresh new look that is more user friendly. Last year the WIC webpage had more than 76,000 unique visitors with nearly 350,000 page views- making it one of our most popular sites. The redesigned site includes a Find a [...]
The number of prescriptions filled for opioid pain relievers has increased dramatically along with deaths from overdoses from painkillers (more than 1000 in AZ last year), leading the CDC to identify prescription drug abuse a problem of "epidemic" proportions. To better equip physicians against this crisis, the National Institute on Drug Abuse offers two free online [...]
A new study published in February by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that taking folic acid may help reduce the number of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The study followed more than 85,000 children nationwide born between 2002 and 2008 and followed up with them in 2012. According to the study, [...]
There’s never a dull day in public health! Things are changing all the time– from new interventions to help folks stay or be more healthy to the discovery of a new virus. Recently, folks on the other side of the world documented a new Coronavirus that can be transmitted person to person. It was first [...]
One in every 600 or so babies born in AZ has Down Syndrome, including my kid Luke- (pictured here with his Grandma & Grandpa- Tom and Norma). We'll be celebrating World Down Syndrome Day on Thursday March 21st to help raise awareness of what Down Syndrome is, what it means to have Down Syndrome, and [...]
Believe it or not only 27% of health care workers are up to date with their whooping cough booster… yet health care personnel can be infected with it by their patients, and then pass it on to other patients, family, and the community. The Arizona Partnership Against Pertussis, a coalition of seventeen health care organizations [...]
The best kind of good works are those that are done without prompting. Today, I met with a young lady whose mom works at ADHS. Earlier this month, Edie turned 8 and decided that instead of gifts she wanted to collect food for the food bank. But not just any kind of food – she [...]
If your at all interested in celestial events... make sure you take the time to check out Comet PANSTARRS starting this week at sunset in the West. It'll be around for a couple of weeks then it's off to space again. Here's more info about it. A different, much brighter comet is due in November called Comet ISON... which may [...]
No doubt the word “ Sequestration” is front and center in your vocabulary these days. This is just a quick note to forecast how it might impact our mission. For starters… the main impacts from federal sequestration (i.e. the federal budget reduction for some programs) will be related to the services that we provide and [...]
This week’s Vital Signs report shows that antibiotics are being overpowered by lethal germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or (CRE).These germs cause lethal infections in patients that get inpatient medical care in hospitals, long-term care facilities and nursing homes. In their normal forms, the germs- in the Enterobacteriaceae family (e.g. E. coli) are a normal part of our digestive system. However, some of them have [...]
