General

Arizona School Vaccination Rates Posted

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:19-07:00February 4th, 2015|General|

With all the news about Arizona’s measles outbreak, I’m sure you’ve heard just how important vaccination is for our community. Public health agencies study vaccine coverage data to understand how well communities are protected from preventable disease and to make targeted decisions about how to contain an outbreak. For example, if there’s a disease outbreak [...]

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Rural Metro Union Authorizes Strike

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:19-07:00January 30th, 2015|General|

Last week Southwest Ambulance workers (Southwest is a subsidiary of Rural/Metro) voted to authorize their union management to call a strike in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties. The union’s management hasn't yet called for a strike and hopefully both parties will continue to negotiate and reach a deal. If they do decide to call a strike, [...]

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Naught Measles

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:19-07:00January 30th, 2015|General|

Last fall I wrote about how contagious Ebola is compared to other diseases, using a mathematical calculation called R0 (R naught). R0 is a tool we use in epidemiology to estimate the average number of people one sick person will infect. The R0 for measles is off the charts. It has one of the highest R0 [...]

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Medical Marijuana Sales Tripled in 2014

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:20-07:00January 16th, 2015|General, Licensing|

We published our end-of-year annual medical marijuana report this week. Dispensary marijuana sales were three times higher than in 2013. Dispensaries sold over 9 metric tons (about 10 US tons) of marijuana in 2014 for an estimated gross revenue of about $110M. There were 1,433,808 individual sales in ‘14 (among the 55,000 patients), with an [...]

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Ebola Epidemic Index Case Identified?

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:20-07:00January 15th, 2015|General|

A 2 year-old boy from Guinea appears to be what we call in our business the “Index Case” for the West African Ebola epidemic. In epidemiology, an Index Case is the first documented case of an illness that spreads to others. The 2 year-old appears to have been infected by playing in a hollow tree [...]

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Arizona’s Paramedic Training: Excellent Results

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:20-07:00January 14th, 2015|General|

Arizona’s Paramedic training programs are taught by a combination of colleges, private training centers, and fire departments. A typical Paramedic course is over 1,000 hours of class room, hospital and ambulance time covering anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, terminology, and hours and hours of assessment and proficiency tests on a multitude of skills. To become certified [...]

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Staying in the Saddle

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:20-07:00January 9th, 2015|Behavioral Health, General, Preparedness, Prevention|

We’ve had a great run together since I accepted the Interim ADHS Director position 6 years ago. I’m grateful to all of you for trusting me in this important position and for working together for the benefit of the folks of Arizona. We’ve made tremendous progress toward our Vision of Health and Wellness for all [...]

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Teen Pregnancy and Births

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:20-07:00January 7th, 2015|General, Prevention|

Teen pregnancies and births continued to be a challenge for us in 2014, but we continued to see encouraging results. Having a baby as a teenager impacts the mom, the dad, the baby and the whole community. Teen parents often don’t finish high school, which in turn, reduces their ability to financially take care of [...]

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American Medical Response’s Application Approved

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:21-07:00January 5th, 2015|General, Licensing|

This morning I approved American Medical Response’s (AMR Maricopa) application to operate ambulances in Maricopa County (called a Certificate of Necessity or CON). I approved the Certificate of Necessity after reviewing a host of evidence presented to an Administrative Law Judge and her Order recommending approval. The official notice will be posted on the Office [...]

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Infectious Disease Preparedness & Response

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:21-07:00December 31st, 2014|General|

The Ebola virus, influenza, enterovirus, tuberculosis, and other emerging infectious diseases posed key public health challenges in Arizona during 2014, sparking important interventions. In October the Governor issued an Executive Order establishing the Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response to develop and implement a coordinated plan to ensure Arizona’s public health infrastructure is prepared [...]

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