There’s a big outbreak of cholera in Haiti, and health officials are working with international agencies to control the outbreak. Cholera causes severe watery diarrhea and can spread easily from person to person through contaminated food and water. The diarrhea caused by cholera results in loss of body fluids, which can cause severe dehydration and, [...]
Throughout my career I’ve learned that a cornerstone of working with the community is to make sure you have a true partnership. Every partnership starts with trust. In order to establish and maintain trust throughout our implementation period, the ADHS needs to ensure that our process is completely fair, open, honest and transparent. Part of [...]
The AZ Medical Marijuana Act states that cities and towns may adopt "reasonable regulations" regarding the location and operations of medical marijuana dispensaries and growing operations in their jurisdictions. The ADHS still has the responsibility to issue the dispensary license- but any license that we ultimately issue would be contingent on the prospective facility being [...]
Thanks for giving your all over the last year. I know it hasn’t been easy. We’ve been though a lot over the last year with budget reductions, furloughs, short staffing and other uncertainty- yet you’ve remained committed to our mission, stayed at your post and helped move our mission ahead for the people of Arizona. [...]
If you picked up a U.S. Vital Statistics edition in say 1940, you’d notice an emphasis on stillbirth statistics in the maternal and child health sections. Today while infant mortality (rather than stillbirths) receives more attention as a sentinel indicator of maternal and child health, it’s still significant. You may recall reading in a previous [...]
Today is World AIDS Day – an opportunity to remember those impacted by HIV/AIDS, look back at its history and toward future developments that may prevent limit its spread. HIV was first identified in the United States in 1981. In the early 1980’s, public health efforts focused heavily on identification of the virus. Once the [...]
Our Arizona Cancer Center has developed a highly interactive new website using state-of-the-art GIS technology. This nifty new website lets the public and researchers access cancer data by communities (Community Health Analysis Areas). It allows easy access to age adjusted incidence rates and counts for 13 cancers that have public health implications. The website visualizes [...]
Our Raise Your Voice Behavioral Health Forums are going quite well. You’ll remember that our objective for the Forums is to help us transform our behavioral health system for the better. Our behavioral health team has been traveling to most parts of the state to hold focus groups including 14 in Maricopa County and focus [...]
I get this question a lot from folks. While Congress has determined that it’s illegal to distribute and sell marijuana, several states have passed laws authorizing the distribution and use of marijuana for medical purposes. Arizona will likely be the 15th state to do so if the election is certified today (November 29). So, in [...]
California has had 6,400 + cases of whooping cough (pertussis) and 10 infant deaths so far in 2010, which is the highest number of cases they've had since the age of immunizations began (about 60 years ago). Meanwhile, Arizona has had 361 cases and no deaths in 2010 compared to 277 cases in all of 2009. Even [...]
