AZ Interventions to Improve Vaccination Rates
Arizona law requires kids to get certain vaccines in order to attend school unless a doctor signs a medical exemption form or a parent signs a religious or personal belief exemption form. There’s been an increasing number of parents who are signing personal belief exemption forms - putting herd mmunity at risk. Every year we examine our exemption rates…which gives [...]
Unvaccinated Kids Come in Clusters
Courtesy: Journal of Pediatrics Last week’s issue of the Journal Pediatrics sheds light on something that we see here in Arizona - that parental refusal and delay of childhood vaccines is clustered in certain communities. The study was done in California and found that the percentage of kids who were under-immunized increased from 8% in 2002–2005 to 13% in [...]
Vaccines & the Social Contract
At the core - vaccines are really about community protection. Our public health system depends on a solid network of providers that are available to vaccinate kids for all of the nasty infectious diseases that have plagued humanity for millennium. It’s not just access to care and a solid network of providers that vaccinate that are important - we also [...]
Five AZ Measles Cases from a Disneyland Exposure
By now you’ve probably heard about the measles outbreak associated with travel to Disneyland. CDC is reporting about 50 measles cases (in multiple states) who had been to Disneyland in late December. Arizona joined the list this week. This week we had 5 measles cases associated with the Disneyland outbreak, one in Maricopa County and 4 in Pinal County. The Pinal County cases [...]
Alcohol Treatment & Interventions in Arizona
Substance abuse causes a host of bad public health outcomes including unintentional injuries, accidents, risk of domestic violence, medical problems, and even death…and alcohol abuse is at the top of the list. Drinking too much increases your chances of being injured or even killed. Alcohol is a factor in about 60% of homicides, 50% of severe trauma injuries, and 40% [...]
Alcohol Poisoning in Arizona
Excessive alcohol use is the 4th leading preventable cause of death in the US. In fact, excessive drinking causes about 10% of deaths among 20–64 year olds…with binge drinking responsible for about half of that 10%. Nationally, alcohol is a factor in about 60% of homicides, 50% of severe trauma injuries, and 40% of car crashes and suicides. Yet, about [...]