Obesity, injury prevention, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse are all border health priorities. Our prevention team put together an inventory identifying current programs addressing these priority areas in AZs border communities. Our WIC program and Arizona Nutrition Network reach thousands of low-income women and kids along the border- improving nutrition and reducing obesity. Programs like our Sexual Violence Prevention & Education and Safe Kids [...]
As part of our strategic plan, we name 5 winnable battles to prioritize over the next 1-3 years. While not de-emphasizing work in other areas, this is an important effort to achieve measurable impact quickly in a few targeted areas. We’ve identified five areas as key domestic winnable battles for improving our state’s health, based [...]
We published our 2011 ADHS Annual Report this week. Rather than reproduce all of our activities in narrative form- we used a summary approach this year that incorporates a lot of “hot links” to more information about our achievements.
CDC released their new National Action Plan for Preventing Child Injury this week. The goals of the National Action Plan are to raise awareness about the problem of child injuries and the effects on our nation, offer solutions by uniting stakeholders around a common set of goals and strategies, and mobilize action to reduce child [...]
Our interdisciplinary team completed a major milestone this week- by developing an initial rough draft of what will become the Scope of Work that will be included in the upcoming Request for Proposal for the behavioral health (and acute care) services in Maricopa County. This effort has taken literally thousands of staff hours to put together- and [...]
You might remember that the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission was transferred to the ADHS last legislative session. We officially became responsible for the Commission in July of 2011. My first priorities were to get a clear analysis of the “books” (e.g. the financial records etc.), get a handle on the outstanding research projects that the Commission [...]
In public health it’s good to know where the resources are – and where they're short. Our Health Systems Development team created an excellent online tool to help our partners keep track of resources -- to see where we have enough physicians and where we could use more. It also shows how much of an area is [...]
Prescription drugs can be safe and effective at treating illnesses- but leftovers are also tempting for experimental teens- and the misuse of narcotic prescriptions is an increasingly urgent public health problem in Arizona. In fact, more than 1,100 Arizonans died from prescription drug poisoning from misuse and abuse last year- which is more than the number [...]
Alan Oppenheim was an excellent leader and manager- but much more importantly- he was a really good person. He always cared about others and asked lots of questions about what was going on. He was a team player- he had everybody’s and the team’s best interests in mind… and was wholeheartedly committed to our mission [...]
Our team from Environmental Health was in the Dewey-Humboldt area at their elementary school gym providing free blood lead tests for area kids. There's been some community concerns about possible lead poisoning in children because of the nearby Iron King Mine and a smelter that once operated in the area. Lead poisoning in AZ (we have about 300 cases [...]
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