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Influenza season officially arrived last week when our Arizona State Public Health Laboratory confirmed the 1st AZ-acquired influenza case for the 2014-2015 season. Although flu activity is monitored year-round in Arizona, the start of the season intensifies our statewide surveillance activities. Partners across the state (including local health departments, laboratories and healthcare providers) participate by reporting [...]
HIV/AIDS affects or infects over 15,000 people in the state of Arizona. HIV has become a chronic disease, one that can be managed, which means most people are not dying of AIDS. However, there are still a lot of difficulties associated with being HIV positive. The prescriptions alone can be expensive and the side effects [...]
Ring around the roseies, A pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes! We all fall down! In 1348, London was 4 million strong, but within 2.5 years a third of those had “fallen down.” The streets were narrow and cramped, often piled ankle deep with human and animal waste. The putrid smell contaminated everything in the [...]
If you’re a “benefits eligible” state employee, you now have a new opportunity to improve your health and your wallet. This week Benefit Options Wellness launched a new health initiative called the Health Impact Program (HIP). It’s a point-based incentive program that encourages participation in a variety of wellness activities, while logging progress toward a [...]
The vast majority of Arizonans are born in hospitals. Shortly after delivery the electronic paperwork to establish an Arizona birth certificate gets input and processed. Even babies delivered at home attended by a midwife (about 1% of Arizona births) have their birth certificate information captured and processed. Many years ago, especially in Arizona’s Indian Country, [...]
This week there’s been some news about kids in Colorado hospitalized with neurologic illness. At this time, 10 of the kids have been hospitalized with weakness in their limbs, but no cause has been identified. The neurologic illness could be caused by enteroviorus D68 (4 of the kids have tested positive), but we don’t yet know for [...]
A couple weeks ago I wrote about our new Community Profiles Dashboards. They’re a huge leap forward for public health professionals, city planners, non-profit organizations, medical providers and anyone interested in health data. The data are arranged on the Dashboards - in state, county, and Primary Care Areas - to provide several options to compare and explore [...]
Abuse of prescription drugs is a public health epidemic, but you can do your part in helping to curb access to prescription drugs with one simple step: get rid of your old and unused medications. This weekend is the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day held by the DEA and state and local partners. Removing [...]
This is national suicide prevention month. What can you do to prevent suicide? Look for the warning signs: Those talking about wanting to die Those giving away their possessions Those feeling hopeless, or intensely lonely Those experiencing mental or physical pain Those increasing their use of substances Those discussing revenge Those demonstrating extreme mood swings [...]
I was at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Annual Meeting and Policy Summit most of last week. This year’s meeting was entitled Achieving Population Health in Evolving Systems. We shared best practices with each other about different ways states are approaching population health. We heard from the Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Boris D. [...]
