Typhoon Haiyan & Public Health
Like conflict and wars, typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) destroyed basic services for food, water, health care and shelter in the Central Philippines. This disaster was declared a “Level 3” Emergency by the UN, meaning there’s substantial impact on the health of people and it can’t be managed by a country or region alone. The WHO assessed the health needs [...]
Thanks for the Food
Thanks to all of you that made this year’s food drive a success again. We started off a little slow this year, but donations really picked up this week and we ended up collecting more than 1,000 Kg of food… with almost half coming in this week. We haven’t broken out the finals for the division because there’s still [...]
Excellent “Public Health 101” PowerPoint
One of the objectives in our Strategic Map is Building Awareness of Public Health Value. One of the ways we can do that is to educate community groups, students and other Stakeholders about the return on investment that public health provides and how the system works. Lucky for us the CDC recently published a PowerPoint called “Public Health 101” which [...]
Childhood Obesity Clinician Toolkit
The Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics recently updated their collection of hands-on tools that can be easily integrated into clinical practice. The tools are designed to help clinicians to incorporate clinical evidence-based recommendations for obesity prevention, assessment, treatment and referral into their practice. They’ve included a document that can be folded to pocket-size identifying appropriate lab assessments, [...]
AZ Office of Administrative Hearings Speaks
The formal protest process regarding our award of the Regional Behavioral Health Authority contract in Maricopa County is finally winding down. The proceedings at the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) were completed a few weeks ago, and the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued her recommendation on Monday, concluding that: “Based on the foregoing, it is recommended that ADHS’s award of [...]
Chronic Disease Calculator E-tool.
The CDC just developed a great new Cost Calculator that provides state-level annual medical expenditure and absenteeism estimates for 10 chronic conditions. The tool provides medical expenditures for all of AZ for all payers as well as specific payers Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurers. The 10 chronic conditions are arthritis; asthma; cancer; cardiovascular diseases (congestive heart failure, coronary heart disease, [...]