Remember our responses to the 2009-2010 H1N1 Pandemic? One of the reasons why Arizona’s public health responses were so effective was that we had a well researched and tested pandemic readiness plan. But... public health readiness isn’t a static process, and once the pandemic was finished we set out to revise our plan with lessons learned. Over [...]
Many folks don’t know that our Licensing division undergoes a periodic audit (survey) to look at compliance to our Federal contract with the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS). This past week, 3 surveyors from the regional office of CMS came to review our Long Term Care and Medical Facilities areas. This survey centered on [...]
For decades, removing lead (Pb) from the environment has been a public health priority because residual contamination from decades of using products containing harmful lead continued to cause health problems. Fortunately, the public health interventions (removing Pb from gas, paint, and cans) worked and today 99.9% of Arizona kids have blood lead levels below the standard. As [...]
For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services. The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish [...]
For years, you’ve heard that you should take your health care into your own hands It may soon be easier – the federal Health and Human Services Secretary wants you to be able to access your electronic health care records. One key argument to give people access is if they know what is there, they [...]
Back in June a resident of our Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center (ACPTC) (one of our civilly committed sex offenders) escaped while he was on an approved pass to go to church. He was found by Tempe police later that day. Because of the security issues that the event raised, I asked the staff [...]
In all my years in public health this is the first crack I’ve taken at being a movie critic- so give me a little slack on this one. I checked out the new movie called Contagion- and really liked it. I won’t give up too much information and spoil the film, but it’s basically a fictional [...]
In 1862, a French chemist named Louis Pasteur discovered that heat kills germs in liquids, preventing bacterial growth, food spoilage and foodborne illnesses. He used his discovery to invent methods that have been used for the last 150 years as a sanitary treatment for milk – which at the time was a prime source of TB. His experiment? He exposed [...]
Ever wandered about your family tree? Electra Anderson recently started doing some research and was able to find all 13 of her dad’s siblings birth certificates using a resource developed at ADHS by Keith Laubham with nothing but some ingenuity. It’s called http://genealogy.az.gov/. Compared to other states, this site is the easiest and most versatile to search. This [...]
Some of my most memorable moments of elementary school are about things that happened at lunchtime. Back in the day, lunchtime lasted just as long as all the other periods. It’s still that way in some places- but in others lunch hasn’t been competing for time as successfully with the other academic priorities. The School [...]
