Here you will find topics ranging from current events that affect public health in Arizona to overall information about the Arizona Department of Health Services
If you’re like my family, there are times when some of you don’t get enough sleep. In fact about 30% of Americans don’t get the 7 to 8 hours of sleep that we need to stay healthy. Now that everybody is plugged into an electronic device these days (especially teens) is seems to be getting [...]
Have you ever wondered — Why do people get sick? How can we prevent the spread of disease? What do doctors REALLY do? If so, the U of A College of Medicine in Phoenix has a summer program for you! Be a part of Med-Start Phoenix, a two-week day program with a fast paced curriculum [...]
The USDA announced proposed new guidelines for school wellness policies as part of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 this week. The new policies set goals in nutrition, physical activity, and other school-based activities promoting student wellness. Additionally, the school wellness policies include a guideline on food marketing in schools, setting a standard that [...]
Patients and Staff at the Arizona State Hospital are working with the Phoenix Rescue Mission again this year to create Blessing Bags. They're large gallon sized Ziploc bags filled with basic necessities which will be handed out by the Phoenix Rescue Mission to the homeless. But they need some donations to get going. The Hospital team [...]
Today we published Arizona’s first ever comprehensive State Health Assessment. The objective of the State Health Assessment is to give Arizona’s public health and health care systems a clear tool to help drive future decision-making and resource allocation as we collectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes across Arizona. The [...]
The child safety seat exchange program we established as cooperative partnership via the Arizona-Mexico Commission last summer is moving forward. We’ve established a new partnership with Rural Metro and Southwest Ambulance to serve as collection sites for people who want to donate their gently used car seat that will be donated to families in Sonora. [...]
As the Olympics begin, Chef and Registered Dietitian Allen Tran’s words come to mind, “nutrition can make a good athlete great or a great athlete good”. I think his view holds some truth for all of us. Allen knows because he is the High-Performance Chef for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. He is in [...]
Last summer a Superior Court judge decided that a portion of our medical marijuana regulations are unreasonable because our regulations didn’t have a process for dispensary registration certificate holders to renew their dispensary registration certificate if they didn't earn their approval to operate within 1 year. This week we posted new draft rules (and an Online Survey to get [...]
I’ve written several posts about how prescription painkillers kill more Arizonans than heroin and cocaine combined- but heroin is still the No. 1 killer among the illegal drugs. One hundred people died from a heroin overdose in AZ in 2013 (vs. about 1,000 from prescription drugs). Heroin is very addictive. According to NIDA, about 23% of people that try heroin will become [...]
Getting access to primary care providers is critical to disease prevention. The problem is that there aren’t enough primary care providers nationwide. Arizona is short by about 300 primary care physicians, 250 dentists and about 70 psychiatrists. That’s why Arizona has been aggressive in their efforts to recruit providers to work in Arizona, specifically in [...]
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