Public Health’s 10 Essential Services
Public Health’s 10 Essential Services Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture - what is public health? Public health is everywhere and is a part of the infrastructure that keeps our communities safe and healthy and focuses on the entire populations while other models may focus on the individual. In the 1900s the average lifespan of people [...]
Fl- – An Inexpensive Public Health Intervention
When I was a kid growing up in Tucson- it seemed like we lived at the dentist- and getting cavities filled was routine. It’s way better these days because of a host of public health and dental product interventions… but 75% of Arizona kids still have tooth decay by the time they’re in 3rd grade. Around 1900 scientists speculated that fluoride might [...]
Dogs and Residents
The father of a person living in one of our licensed behavioral health residential facilities phoned in an after-hours complaint to our behavioral health licensing team on the Friday before Christmas Eve. Little did our team leader Bill McCarroll know when he answered the phone that he would hear graphic details of a brutal pit-bull attack- and he moved swiftly into action. The [...]
Folic Acid Awareness Week
This week is National Folic Acid Awareness Week and a great time to start taking a multivitamin with 400 micrograms (mcg) of folic acid every day. So, whether or not you’re planning to have a baby this year, you can start the New Year with healthy habits that will help give a baby a healthy start in life. Folic acid is [...]
Being Prepared is No Accident
Last January 8th, the world was horrified by the events in Tucson Arizona. A mass shooting in a supermarket parking lot on a Saturday morning – 19 people shot, 6 died. As tragic as this event was, it could have been worse had the emergency medical care providers and trauma team not been prepared. It is no accident that the [...]
Up & Away & Out of Sight
More than 2,000 kids ended up in AZ emergency rooms from accidental poisoning last year. Kids 5 and younger had the highest rates of non-fatal ER visits from accidental poisoning. Nationally, more than 60,000 young children end up in emergency rooms because they got into medicines while their parent or caregiver wasn't looking. The new Up and Away and Out of Sight educational program was created to remind [...]