Federal Program Helps Recruit Doctors in Underserved Areas
Arizona needs more doctors to help take care of our residents’ various health issues but we are challenged with recruiting enough especially in the rural communities. The National Health Service Corps has a program called the Student to Service Loan Repayment Program which is designed to attract newly trained physicians to work in rural, underserved areas. The program allows 4th [...]
City Health Commissioners Raise Awareness of Prescription Drug Overdose
The National Association of City and County Health Officers Big Cities Health Coalition recently held a standing-room-only Congressional briefing on prescription drug abuse and overdose. The briefing focused on local policy successes, challenges, and solutions to help save lives. Click here to learn more about the Big Cities Health Coalition, projects they are currently engaged in, and to watch a [...]
Melanoma Reporting
Melanoma skin cancer is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Many believe that Arizona has similar age adjusted incidence rates to Australia, the world’s highest rate. But during the middle of the last decade, the Arizona Cancer Registry data showed a puzzling decline in cancer rates. The AZ Melanoma Task Force to look at the cause. The task force consists [...]
Vital Records & Same Gender Marriage
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Arizona began recognizing same gender marriages (as an outcome of a recent federal court case). The court decision will influence some of the things that we do in our Vital Records shop - mostly as we process of death certificates. Arizona law specifies the people that can get a certified copy of a [...]
2014 AIDS Walk
HIV/AIDS affects or infects over 15,000 people in the state of Arizona. HIV has become a chronic disease, one that can be managed, which means most people are not dying of AIDS. However, there are still a lot of difficulties associated with being HIV positive. The prescriptions alone can be expensive and the side effects can be very hard on [...]
Vaccines- Calling the Shots
Every time a different disease surfaces in the news like MERS, Ebola or Enterovirus D 68, one of the first questions people ask is, “Is there a vaccine for it?” A new documentary created for NOVA on PBS – Vaccines – Calling the Shots recently outlined the history of vaccines and the possibility of vaccine-preventable diseases returning to the U.S. It’ll [...]