The SunWise Program held its annual presentation of the “Be SunWise & Play Sun Smart Skin Cancer Prevention Poster Contest” on Saturday, May 5 at the Arizona Diamondbacks vs. the Houston Astros baseball game. This year marked the 15th year of the annual poster contest, which invites students from all over the state of Arizona to showcase their [...]
CDC’s Vital signs publication recently highlighted unusual antibiotic resistance germs, which are resistant to all or most antibiotics tested and are uncommon or carry special resistance genes. Antibiotic-resistant germs can spread very easily. Germs constantly develop resistance against new and older antibiotics. Examples of unusual resistance include: Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA), Candida auris and certain types of “nightmare bacteria” such as [...]
The 1918 influenza pandemic was a devastating global event responsible for up to 100 million deaths. While it is widely known as the “Spanish Flu”, it likely did not originate there. Although most people first learned of the pandemic from Spanish news, some of the earliest documented cases were in the Midwestern U.S. In Arizona [...]
The Arizona Department of Health Services and The Arizona Partnership for Immunization are proud to announce that Lieutenant Commander Greg Sarchet, from White River Indian Hospital/Indian Health Service/Unites States Public Health Service has been selected as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Childhood Immunization Champion for Arizona. The annual CDC Childhood Immunization Champion Award, given jointly [...]
A recent Vital Signs report from the CDC highlights the increasing threat of “vector-borne” diseases—illnesses spread by mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas. Between 2004 and 2016, reported cases of vector-borne diseases tripled, and over half a million people became ill from diseases such as Lyme, West Nile, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and plague. In addition, nine new diseases were introduced or discovered [...]
Many of the provisions of the Arizona Opioid Epidemic Act, or Senate Bill 1001, go into effect on April 26. Governor Ducey signed the law on January 26, just four days after a special session was held with unanimous support for passage of the landmark legislation to reduce overdoses and improve patient safety. Some of the [...]
I’m excited to announce that our State has received another set of outstanding scores for public health preparedness from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR). The 2018 National Snapshot provides an overview of federal, state, local, and tribal preparedness and response efforts. The report also includes fact sheets with performance [...]
Temperatures are beginning to rise in our state. Most people probably remember the June heat wave last year, which brought on record temperatures. From June 12-27, 2017, temperatures reached 119 ° in Phoenix, 93° in Flagstaff, 120° in Yuma, and 116° in Tucson. Extreme heat will be upon us again soon. Our latest preliminary heat [...]
Earlier this year, we took a huge first step in our efforts to transform the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) into a Center for Psychiatric Excellence by releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP), soliciting outside organizations interested in leasing space on the campus. The Center for Psychiatric Excellence will provide state of the art, comprehensive behavioral [...]
This week we celebrated National Public Health Week, highlighting the great work and accomplishments of the Arizona Department of Health Services and our public health and healthcare partners from across the state. We are concluding this week with the release of our Annual Report to highlight many of the great projects and programs our teams accomplished over the last fiscal year, [...]
