The Listeria monocytogenes outbreak has captured the public’s attention these days- so I thought I’d do a piece on Arizona’s food safety network. Let’s start at the farm & ranch. The Arizona Department of Agriculture is responsible for ensuring that the base of the food safety pyramid is solid in Arizona. They have several divisions that are [...]
Arizona Smokers' Helpline, the University of Arizona, Mel and Enid Zuckerman, and the College of Public Health will present a free CME conference "Evidence-based Interventions for Tobacco Cessation in Populations with Mental Illness Challenges," Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. to behavioral health providers. The conference will take place at the [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about our new Home Baked and Confectionary Goods Program. Since then, the program has really taken off. About 700 people have registered with the program since we turned the key a few weeks ago, baking a variety of snacks, ranging from cookies and cupcakes to healthy goodies. Bakers who [...]
You probably heard that Steve Jobs- the former head of Apple died this week of pancreatic cancer. While pancreatic cancer is the 10th most common kind of cancer in the US, it’s the 4th most common cause of cancer death. It often has a poor prognosis partly because people often don’t have any symptoms until [...]
As a follow up to my email earlier this month introducing you to the agency-wide efforts around accreditation and presentations of the draft strategic map, I'm happy to formally announce our new mission and vision: To improve the health and wellness of people and communities in Arizona (our Mission) and Health and Wellness for all Arizonans (our [...]
We turned the key last week on our new rules for child care homes (child care homes provide “pay” child care between 5 and 10 kids). The new rules officially went into effect on September 30. We crafted the new rules to go hand in hand with SB 1315, which outlines the standards for child [...]
Great news! The CDC gave us a heads up this week that AZ will be receiving a new $842,000 Chronic Disease Prevention & Health Promotion grant. While all states were guaranteed $300,000 on a non-competitive basis, we successfully competed for a supplemental award. We’ll be able to be able to address the leading causes of [...]
We’re partnering with the AZ Division of Emergency Management to conduct the biggest preparedness exercise ever to be held in Arizona. It’s called the 2011 Arizona ”Vigilant Guard” Exercise. It’ll involve around 5,000 folks from various backgrounds including emergency management, public health, health care, law enforcement, fire, military, and the private sector. The exercise will be [...]
Pretty much everybody knows that getting an annual influenza vaccine protects them from getting influenza- but fewer people realize that getting vaccinated saves other people’s lives as well. That’s because if a large percentage of the population takes advantage of the vaccine (called herd immunity) we can reduce the overall spread of the disease- and save [...]
Arizona’s HIV surveillance hit the mark in the latest CDC national Incidence report. Arizona led the nation in testing and treatment completeness and test results. We’re very proud to have published the first ever Arizona specific HIV incidence estimate which is now posted on our website.
