AZ’s Behavioral Health State Plan
Our Division of Behavioral Health Services recently submitted its combined mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment services State Plan for FY 12-13 to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Plan that we submitted doubles as the State Plan that’s required by ARS 36-550.01. The Plan provides an overview of Arizona’s behavioral health prevention, early identification, [...]
Obesity & Autism Walking Hand in Hand?
Another article came out this week in the journal Pediatrics that points toward the importance of preconception health including maintaining a healthy weight before and during pregnancy. The authors explored the relationship between metabolic disorders like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity and outcomes such as autism and other developmental delays. They found an association between metabolic disorders and neurological problems in [...]
Empower Program Gets National Recognition
Our Physical Activity and Nutrition and Child Care Licensing programs were selected for a national award from Let’s Move!- Child Care for our outstanding work to promote young children’s health and prevent childhood obesity through the Empower program and our training videos. Our work will be showcased at the May 9 Let’s Move! Child Care Recognition Luncheon in DC. The [...]
National Poison Prevention Week
This week marks the 50th anniversary of National Poison Prevention Week. For the first time ever- poisoning surpassed car crashes as the number one cause of injury deaths in AZ and more than 2,000 kids had to go to emergency rooms last year from unintentional poisoning. Kids under 5 had the highest rates of non-fatal emergency department visits from poisoning. For more information on poisoning in Arizona, [...]
Integrating Public Health & Primary Care
The Institute of Medicine just released a consensus report called "Primary Care and Public Health: Promoting Integration to Improve Population Health" that identified several principles that public health and primary care could work toward further integration- including the goals of population health improvement, aligned leadership, sustainability, community engagement, and the collaborative use of data and analysis. Check it out and send the link along to your Stakeholders.
Behavioral Health Dashboard Refresh
Magellan of AZ & their behavioral health providers (and of course our DBHS shop) have been collaborating to develop and update an innovative provider outcomes dashboards to make a transparent window into the effectiveness of the behavioral health system based on core metrics. The recently updated online dashboards provide great info to the folks that we serve and their families… but also to the [...]