Unique Approach to Timely Dengue and Chikungunya Surveillance
Dengue and chikungunya are two mosquito-borne viruses that Arizonans can contract when traveling outside the country. If a mosquito in Arizona bites an infected person during their illness, it would be possible for the virus to start spreading in the state. To prevent this from happening, it is important for public health to identify suspected dengue and chikungunya patients quickly [...]
HIV Testing and Awareness Campaign Begins
Our HIV Prevention Program in the Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease launched Arizona's first statewide HIV prevention media campaign in late October. The media campaign uses the tagline “Its Only Dangerous When You Don’t Know It’s There” and is designed to positively promote and support HIV-related public health and safety. The campaign features people running into a signpost, falling into [...]
Disease Detectives Investigating Rise in Valley Fever Cases
Every year in the United States approximately 150,000 people are believed to be infected by Coccidioidomycosis, the fungus that causes Valley Fever. It is one of the most commonly reported infectious diseases in Arizona, and our state accounts for 65 percent of all reported cases in the US. Most people that are infected have mild or no symptoms at all; [...]
ADHS is published again
Recently, two manuscripts from the ADHS Office of Infectious Disease Services were published in the Journal of Correctional Health Care. These publications described two outbreaks of botulism at an Arizona correctional facility in a 4-month period. Botulism, usually associated with improperly canned foods, causes flaccid paralysis that can lead to death without treatment or supportive care. In both of these [...]
USDA’s SNAP-Ed Toolkit will feature the Empower Program
Arizona’s Empower Program has been selected for inclusion in the third revision of SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States (Toolkit) that will be released in November 2015. The Toolkit review process was conducted in partnership with USDA and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR). For the third revision of the Toolkit, more applications were received than ever before [...]
Arizona babies receive good grades in latest Report Card
The March of Dimes released its 2015 Premature Birth Report Card today giving our state a “B” grade. New this year, the annual report card ranked state cities and revealed Arizona has a 9 percent preterm birth rate. The report card grades Arizona cities with the greatest number of births on their 2013 preterm birth rates. A preterm birth is considered [...]