Seat Belts
Check this out. Here’s a 3 minute You Tube Video clip that St. Mary's Key Club did on seat belt & texting safety. St. Mary's High School has participated in ADHS' Battle of the Belt program for 3 years now. This will be played during morning announcements, etc. in High Schools around the state.
New Electronic Smokefree AZ Reporting Module
Our Smoke Free Arizona and ITS teams polished off their electronic Complaint Reporting System this week. Our county partners can use the new tool to manage complaints electronically. The reports can be downloaded in PDF format or Excel. This is a great example of a solid team effort with participation from both teams including Harmony Duport, Myrna Motta, Mohibul Khan, Michelle [...]
Seasonal Flu News
The FDA approved this year’s (2010-2011) flu vaccine for the US. This year's shot will protect folks from 3 strains of influenza including the pandemic strain from last year. The technical terms for the strains in this year’s shot are the “A/California/7/09 (H1N1)-like virus (i.e. pandemic virus”; the “A/Perth /16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus”; and the “B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus”. For the first time, [...]
Gulf Fish Testing
Our laboratory expects to get our first seafood samples from the Gulf next week. The goal is find out whether commercial seafood has been contaminated by the oil spill and if so, to determine whether the levels pose a health risk. Our team will specialize in testing for Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The FDA and NOAA will use our data to [...]
World Breastfeeding Week
Arizona enjoys a relatively high breastfeeding rate compared to the rest of the country- with 78% of all newborns being breastfed. But we can always do better, that’s why we’re joining the rest of the world in celebrating World Breastfeeding Week, which promotes the health and well-being of mothers, babies and families throughout the world. Studies show that most pregnant [...]
Arizona’s Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan Goes Live
Some of the folks that we serve in our diverse mission have complicated medical conditions and may have had trouble in the past finding health insurance because of a pre-existing health problem. The new federal healthcare reform law may be able to help some of these folks under the newly created “Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP)”… which is designed to help [...]