Tackling Prescription Drug Abuse with “Awareness. Action. Outcomes!”
Arizona, like every state in the country, is battling an epidemic of people misusing and abusing prescription drugs. We’ve been working with several partners on the Arizona Prescription Drug Misuse & Abuse Initiative since 2012 to reduce the problem in Arizona. The Initiative team recently developed a comprehensive toolkit designed to assist communities to tackle prescription drug abuse at the local level. The Community Toolkit provides easy [...]
May is Hepatitis Awareness Month in Arizona
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 4 million Americans are living with viral hepatitis and more than 20,000 die every year from hepatitis-related infections. Viral hepatitis is the leading cause of liver cancer and the most common reason for liver transplantation. Two types of viral hepatitis, B and C, are the cause of a silent [...]
New Foods for WIC Families in Arizona
Getting kids to eat healthy is hard, especially for busy moms. The Arizona WIC program now offers new foods to help families provide nutritious meals. Yogurt, whole wheat pasta, and new brands of cereal and baby foods for older babies are now available through the WIC program. The full list of foods includes many fresh, frozen and canned vegetables, milks, cheeses, and cereals. WIC [...]
Setting Public Health Grant Spending Priorities
Public health has reach into many areas that you may not think about. Currently we’re working to reduce the number of prescription drug overdoses and deaths. The misuse of prescription drugs is a national epidemic. We’re working with the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission to attack the problem here. The funding for our prevention efforts comes from the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant from the [...]
Empowering Habits, Empowering Lives: Superheroes Empowering Arizona!
This past weekend, we held the fourth annual “Empowering Habits and Empowering Lives” Empower Conference. More than 250 Early Care and Education professionals from all over Arizona participated in the all-day meeting. Conference participants explored the Empower Program's 10 Standards to Empower Children to Live Healthy Lives and learned how to be more effective through developing cultural competency and inclusiveness. The conference [...]
Surviving Triple Digits in Arizona
In Arizona it doesn’t have to be summer for the temperatures to soar. With the first 100 degree day in Phoenix today, we know the scorching heat is right around the corner. High outdoor temperatures aren’t just an inconvenience; they’re dangerous. Heat is the number one killer weather-related cause of death in Arizona and across the country. In 2013, there [...]