Public Health’s 10 Essential Services Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture - what is public health? Public health is everywhere and is a part of the infrastructure that keeps our communities safe and healthy and focuses on the entire populations while other models may focus on the individual. In the 1900s [...]
When I was a kid growing up in Tucson- it seemed like we lived at the dentist- and getting cavities filled was routine. It’s way better these days because of a host of public health and dental product interventions… but 75% of Arizona kids still have tooth decay by the time they’re in 3rd grade. Around 1900 [...]
The father of a person living in one of our licensed behavioral health residential facilities phoned in an after-hours complaint to our behavioral health licensing team on the Friday before Christmas Eve. Little did our team leader Bill McCarroll know when he answered the phone that he would hear graphic details of a brutal pit-bull attack- and he [...]
This week is National Folic Acid Awareness Week and a great time to start taking a multivitamin with 400 micrograms (mcg) of folic acid every day. So, whether or not you’re planning to have a baby this year, you can start the New Year with healthy habits that will help give a baby a healthy start [...]
Last January 8th, the world was horrified by the events in Tucson Arizona. A mass shooting in a supermarket parking lot on a Saturday morning – 19 people shot, 6 died. As tragic as this event was, it could have been worse had the emergency medical care providers and trauma team not been prepared. It [...]
More than 2,000 kids ended up in AZ emergency rooms from accidental poisoning last year. Kids 5 and younger had the highest rates of non-fatal ER visits from accidental poisoning. Nationally, more than 60,000 young children end up in emergency rooms because they got into medicines while their parent or caregiver wasn't looking. The new Up and Away and Out of Sight educational [...]
Our prevention and county health folks will be spending more time working to help counties, schools, and communities to adopt policies that will reduce obesity, chronic disease and disparities. One area of focus will be Border Health where the objectives include reducing motor vehicle accidents and substance abuse. There will also be more going on [...]
Life is a precious gift. None of us knows long our gift will last, so it’s important to make the most of every day. That means doing everything you can to stay healthy by eating well and exercising regularly. A lot of folks will say – I’m stuck with my health because of my genes, [...]
Looking forward, 2012 is going to be another busy year for all of us. During the last Deputy/Assistant Director meeting, managers shared the biggest priorities for the next six months and I will share a few of the highlights throughout this week in our blog. One key focus that echoed throughout everyone’s summary was an [...]
Public health efforts eradicated smallpox from the globe in the late 1970s. The last naturally occurring case was in Somalia in 1977 (followed by a couple of lab accident cases in 1978). Public health’s sites have been set on Polio eradication for the last couple of decades. We got close a couple of times, but [...]
