It has been a busy four months since the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) submitted the Opioid Action Plan to Governor Ducey in September. The report on findings and recommendations was one of the requirements under the public health emergency declaration issued on June 5. The challenging work of reducing opioid overdoses has continued [...]
What are your health-related resolutions? The Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program’s New Year’s Resolution is to increase blood lead testing among Arizona’s most at-risk children. Children exposed to lead may not have any signs or symptoms but experience serious and permanent developmental and learning problems. The Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program released their 2018 Targeted [...]
With the holiday and travel season upon us, Arizonans are encouraged to continue to rebel against arboviruses like chikungunya, dengue, and Zika. Whether you are traveling to a galaxy far, far away or to lands much closer to home, we encourage you to “Fight the Bite” and support resistance efforts. If you have a bad [...]
Infectious agents are all around us. They can be found in the food we eat, in the water we drink, in the air we breathe, and on what we touch. Modern times have brought us solutions, such as vaccines and treatments, but also problems, like air travel and globalized food distribution, which can help spread [...]
Emma is the top name for girls, and Liam is the top name for boys for the second year in a row. The top five girl names for 2017 are Emma, Isabella, Olivia, Mia, and Ava. The top five boy names for 2017 are Liam, Noah, Sebastian, Alexander, and Daniel. The list of baby names [...]
Flu is now widespread in Arizona. As of this week, there have been 2,976 cases of flu reported compared to 347 for the same time period in 2016, which is a 758 percent increase in flu activity. This is the highest number of seasonal cases this early since influenza tests became reportable. During the past [...]
I am proud to announce that Arizona is one of the top states in the nation for public health preparedness. The annual Ready or Not report from the Trust for America’s Health that was released on Dec. 19 grades all 50 states on a variety of criteria including available resources, policy environments, and healthcare systems. [...]
Food safety may not be something you think about everyday, but it is certainly on the minds of the ADHS Food Safety & Environmental Services Program and the County Environmental Health Departments. These are the programs and departments charged with preventing foodborne illness through the inspections their Registered Sanitarians and Sanitarian Aides conduct at over [...]
Arizona has a strong history supporting, implementing and sustaining Community Health Workers (CHW). The Arizona Department of Health Services Community Health Worker Program, which operates under the auspices of our Bureau of Tobacco & Chronic Disease, is a core component in our commitment to reaching disparate and underserved populations, has been a critical partner supporting [...]
Publicly displaying vital public health information can help engage community partners in understanding emerging diseases of concern as well as identify whether public health interventions are improving the health of Arizonans. Our newly established Environmental Public Health Tracking Program furthers this strategy by distributing environmental health surveillance data to help public health practitioners, healthcare providers, community members, policy [...]
