Statewide Heroin Broadcast This Week
Every broadcast TV station and most radio outlets across Arizona will air simultaneously a 30-minute commercial-free investigative report produced by ASU student journalists on the growing perils of heroin and opioid use on Tuesday, January 13, at 6:30 pm. You may remember a similar broadcast a few years ago about methamphetamine use. That broadcast did a great job raising the [...]
Staying in the Saddle
We’ve had a great run together since I accepted the Interim ADHS Director position 6 years ago. I’m grateful to all of you for trusting me in this important position and for working together for the benefit of the folks of Arizona. We’ve made tremendous progress toward our Vision of Health and Wellness for all Arizonans over the last 6 [...]
State Health Assessment & Arizona Health Improvement Plan
To better understand the health status of Arizona's population, we partnered with the county health departments to conduct Community Health Assessments in 2014. We used the Community Health Assessments to develop a comprehensive State Health Assessment, which became basis for putting together an Arizona Health Improvement Plan (AzHIP). We began developing the AzHIP in late 2014 by prioritizing the 15 [...]
Newborn Screening Turn-Around Times
When a reporter from Wisconsin wrote a story about newborn screening turn-around times around the country in December of 2013, we found out that we had room for improvement when it comes to the time it takes newborn metabolic screening samples to get from Arizona hospitals to our Lab. Basically, it was taking too long for the samples to be [...]
Teen Pregnancy and Births
Teen pregnancies and births continued to be a challenge for us in 2014, but we continued to see encouraging results. Having a baby as a teenager impacts the mom, the dad, the baby and the whole community. Teen parents often don’t finish high school, which in turn, reduces their ability to financially take care of their newborn - resulting in [...]
Childhood Immunizations
Childhood immunizations are widely credited as one of the top ten public health achievements of the 20th century. For the 13 diseases included on the current U.S. childhood immunization schedule, 20 million cases of disease are prevented per year, 42,000 lives are saved, and the healthcare system realizes $13.6 million in direct medical costs (see the study here). Due to [...]