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 [...]
National Nurses Week & the Harlem Shake
Anybody that has worked in the healthcare industry knows who's the backbone of care: Nurses. Last week we celebrated nurses with National Nurses Week. We have many nurses throughout the Department in various divisions. Each nurse provides a distinct service to the Department. The majority of our nurses work at the AZ State Hospital providing direct care to the patients [...]
American Indian Healthcare Matrix (Part II)
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll continue my series on the healthcare matrix for American Indians. Last week I covered the basics of the Indian Health Service. This week’s write-up is about something called “638's”. Tribes and Tribal Organizations can elect to administer healthcare services that normally would be administered by the IHS. This option is available under Public [...]
American Indian Healthcare Matrix (Part I)
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing a series on the healthcare matrix for American Indians. I’ll be covering the basics of the Indian Health Service, how Medicaid and Medicare interface with Native Americans, as well as some of the basics of the Affordable Care Act as it relates to American Indians. Let’s start with the Indian Health [...]