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
Arizona is way over the limit - almost 2/3rds of us are overweight or obese. A report released last week shows that the cost to all of us is $190 billion every year. There's a great opportunity happening right now with a national push to fight the obesity problem. The CDC, along with HBO, The Institutes of [...]
Do you think you can help us in “Promoting Health and Wellness for all Arizonans”. That’s the motto here at ADHS and we are looking for a new leader to join our Behavioral Health team. We’re looking for an Assistant Director who is insightful and can see the forest and trees at the same time. [...]
Today marks the start of the 2-week window for applying for a medical marijuana dispensary Registration Certificate in Arizona. Prospective applicants can check out our Registration Certificate Application Checklist, Instructions, and the official Application on our Medical Marijuana Dispensary webpage. In the first two hours, seven people had dropped off applications. We’ll start reviewing applications as they come in- and we’ll stop taking applications [...]
Join thousands of public health professionals around the globe next Tuesday by using your iPhone or BlackBerry or whatever and chronicling public health. May 15 is “A Day” and it’s a global event designed to create and share inspiring perspectives on daily life through photography. Public health folks and organizations can submit photos that capture a day [...]
One of my jobs is to serve on the AZ Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC). We have lots of goals- and one of them is to help folks with disabilities, their families and caregivers to learn about options that are available when an adult with a disability needs legal help to manage one or more facets of his or her [...]
Colby Bower will serve as our Interim Assistant Director for Licensing while we recruit and hire a permanent Assistant Director. Colby has been serving as our Legislative Affairs chief for the last couple of years. Colby fills several of the criteria that we needed for the interim post: 1) He’s a good risk manager and [...]
The Governor signed the budget this week - here's a look at how some of it affects public health: Behavioral Health Services for folks that don’t Qualify for Medicaid The budget that was just signed includes about $39M in new funding for services for folks with a serious mental illness that don’t qualify for Medicaid. [...]
One of the outstanding legal uncertainties regarding our implementation of AZ Medical Marijuana Act has been the Compassion First v. Brewer lawsuit that challenged our authority to require future dispensaries to have a Medical Director. We’ve always thought dispensary medical direction was a key component to making sure that future dispensaries act in the best [...]
Obesity, injury prevention, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse are all border health priorities. Our prevention team put together an inventory identifying current programs addressing these priority areas in AZs border communities. Our WIC program and Arizona Nutrition Network reach thousands of low-income women and kids along the border- improving nutrition and reducing obesity. Programs like our Sexual Violence Prevention & Education and Safe Kids [...]
As part of our strategic plan, we name 5 winnable battles to prioritize over the next 1-3 years. While not de-emphasizing work in other areas, this is an important effort to achieve measurable impact quickly in a few targeted areas. We’ve identified five areas as key domestic winnable battles for improving our state’s health, based [...]
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