Did you know Valley Fever (Coccidioidomycosis) is one of the most commonly reported infectious diseases in Arizona? While most people infected with Valley Fever experience mild or no symptoms at all, some suffer from more severe symptoms including pneumonia or the spread of the fungus to other parts of the body, including the brain. Although [...]
Every year the March of Dimes reviews where we are as a nation in reducing premature birth. Being born too early can impact a child’s ability to live a healthy life. It is one of the leading causes of infant death. Arizona has been improving the preterm birth rate for the past 7 years. In [...]
The use of a Child and Family Team is a service offered to all children, adolescents and young adults under the age of 21 enrolled in the Tribal and Regional Behavioral Health Authority systems. The teams are comprised of people important to the child and their development and focus on family group decision making to [...]
Our Community Profiles Dashboard is a powerful new tool public health professionals, city planners, non-profit organizations, medical providers and anyone interested in health data. In Part I of the series we covered the Dashboards and the Primary Care Areas. The second blog and video demo explored suicide data and how you can compare rural and [...]
We held our first Governor’s Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response meeting late last week. The Council outlined 2 priorities…identifying a hospital or hospitals in Arizona that would be responsible for treating any Ebola patient, and improving outreach to physicians across the state to ensure that they have the information needed to effectively identify [...]
This week the CDC began providing us with a daily listing of people arriving in Arizona from Ebola affected countries. This is valuable information because it allows us to more quickly and easily identify suspect cases of Ebola right away-before community exposures occur. This week we received information about a handful of low-risk people that are [...]
As we make our way home from work and school tomorrow, neighborhoods will be filled with goblins, ghosts and superheroes. It’s a night kids look forward to all year, so we need to do our part to make sure Arizona kids have a safe Halloween. The most important thing you can do to keep kids [...]
Arizona needs more doctors to help take care of our residents’ various health issues but we are challenged with recruiting enough especially in the rural communities. The National Health Service Corps has a program called the Student to Service Loan Repayment Program which is designed to attract newly trained physicians to work in rural, underserved [...]
The National Association of City and County Health Officers Big Cities Health Coalition recently held a standing-room-only Congressional briefing on prescription drug abuse and overdose. The briefing focused on local policy successes, challenges, and solutions to help save lives. Click here to learn more about the Big Cities Health Coalition, projects they are currently engaged [...]
Melanoma skin cancer is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Many believe that Arizona has similar age adjusted incidence rates to Australia, the world’s highest rate. But during the middle of the last decade, the Arizona Cancer Registry data showed a puzzling decline in cancer rates. The AZ Melanoma Task Force to look at the [...]
