ADHS Publishes Arizona-Specific “Evidence Toolkit” for Decision-Making
The core of our decision-making as an agency relies on evidence. Evidence can be scientific like surveillance or research or it can be administrative or financial (like return on investment). Whichever way you slice it- the key is to get good reliable information so that our public health system can make effective decisions as we execute our mission. One of [...]
MERS-CoV x 2
A couple of weeks ago a healthcare worker who recently returned from Saudi Arabia was the first confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the U.S. This week the CDC and the Florida health department confirmed a 2nd US case. A person with MERS traveled Saudi Arabia - London - Boston - Atlanta - Orlando. Twenty states are participating [...]
Stroke Awareness Month
Strokes can cause long-term health problems and death. The good news is that strokes can be prevented by understanding the risk factors (which are similar to heart disease) like high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and tobacco. To find out more about your risk for a stroke, you can talk with your physician and participate in Stroke Check this [...]
The Top 5 Killers
The Top 5 things that kill people in the US are: heart disease, cancer, lung disease such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis, stroke and injuries. In fact- these 5 conditions cause 63% of all deaths in the US — which is nearly 18,000 people each year in AZ (about 50 people/day in AZ). This week the CDC released its first [...]
Physical Activities for Adults with Disabilities
A new report released this week from the CDC shows nearly half of adults with disabilities who are able to do aerobic physical activity don’t get any… putting them at a greater risk for chronic diseases. The report showed that adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have heart disease, stroke, diabetes or cancer than adults without disabilities. [...]
Federal Funds for Arizona Public Health
We use a lot of CDC grants in Arizona to promote public health. I’ve talked about what we do with the Maternal and Child Health, as well as the Behavioral Health, grants in previous blogs. There’s another grant that lets us focus on issues that are specifically tailored to Arizona. The Preventive Health block grant helps fund our skin cancer prevention, rape prevention [...]