The Affordable Care Act will establish health insurance exchanges in each state- providing folks (and small business employees) an additional opportunity to get health insurance coverage starting 1/1/14. The future exchanges will provide marketplaces for folks to directly compare and buy private health insurance based on price, quality, and other things. All the plans will need to cover all [...]
Our State Lab performed chemical and biological surveillance testing on food samples from the Republican National Convention. We were selected to participate in the testing because of our reputation and previous experience working with the Food Safety Inspection Service for the detection of biological and chemical agents in food. The samples arrived at the State Laboratory [...]
I’m happy to share our new Arizona Chronic Disease Strategic Plan. This past year, our team from the Bureau of Tobacco & Chronic Disease worked with community partners from across the state on a new guiding document for chronic disease prevention and health promotion. This strategic plan will be used by ADHS, county health departments, and community partners [...]
Lots of people tell me it is easy to drop pounds quickly when starting a diet. Keeping that weight off long-term seems harder. Particularly for older women, natural declines in energy needs after menopause make long-term weight loss even more challenging. Traditional behavioral treatments for obesity have focused on calorie intake and have poor long-term [...]
I’ve mentioned in previous posts about how I’d like to build more bridges between the Arizona’s academic public health infrastructure and Arizona’s public health system. After all- our goal is to use evidence-based practices to drive our interventions- and the U of A’s expertise at the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health is a [...]
Protecting the health and wellbeing of our children is critical to the future of Arizona. September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. Arizona ranks 15th in the nation in childhood obesity with almost 18% of Arizona children (10 to 17) being obese. Obesity puts our children at early risk for conditions we normally associate with [...]
AHCCCS will host public meetings across the state to provide additional information regarding the future of Arizona’s Medicaid program. Here's the Public Meeting Schedule and more information.
I've written a few times about fluoridation - about it being an inexpensive public health intervention and the benefits of fluoride when the EPA and HHS changed the how much they recommend to add to the water supply. But it's always an interesting topic to revisit. Recently, the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College [...]
Some AZ health care providers and parents have asked questions about whether medical marijuana is safe for use while breastfeeding. The short answer is no, because the active chemical in marijuana is passed to the baby through breast milk. For this reason, most experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC advise moms not to use marijuana [...]
We carefully planned our processes for randomly selecting medical marijuana registration certificates in competitive districts to make sure the process was fair and transparent. Part of our planning included contracting with Henry & Horne, LLP to independently observe the entire process. The contract included a requirement to develop a final report documenting their observations. The [...]
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