CDC – Page 4 – AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog

Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:43-07:00April 8th, 2014|Licensing|

Healthcare-Associated infections are a major (often preventable) threat to patient safety. Last week the National and State Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report expanded on previous reports- detailing progress toward the eliminating healthcare-associated infections. The HAI Progress Report found significant reductions for nearly all infections- including in AZ. Central line-associated bloodstream infections and surgical site infections [...]

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Send Your Teen to CDC’s Disease Detective Camp this Summer

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:45-07:00March 21st, 2014|General|

The CDC just began accepting applications for their annual summer Disease Detective Camp. The Camp is open to motivated students who’ll be high-school juniors or seniors during the 2014-2015 school year. Over the course of five days, campers take on the role of disease detectives. Campers can expect a variety of experiences including re-created outbreaks, [...]

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A Key Measure of Preparedness Improves in AZ

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:45-07:00March 18th, 2014|Preparedness|

During a major crisis, such as an influenza pandemic, we might need to take extraordinary steps to ensure that healthcare workers have the medicines and supplies on hand to treat patients. State, local, and federal agencies all participate in the Strategic National Stockpile program to help ensure that these critical resources are available during disaster situations. [...]

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Obesity Drops Among Preschoolers

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:47-07:00March 5th, 2014|Prevention|

The latest CDC obesity data published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association found a significant decline in obesity among kids aged 2 to 5. Obesity prevalence for this age group declined by 43% in the last 8 years (from 14% in 2004 to 8% in 2012. While the precise reasons for the [...]

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Detecting Scary Diseases

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:49-07:00February 25th, 2014|Prevention|

Disease outbreaks can come from anywhere. In Arizona we’ve had illness from contaminated pomegranate seeds from the Middle East, measles from Switzerland, salmonellosis from African dwarf frogs and cholera from Peru. More recently a Canadian traveler died of H5N1 after she returned home from a long trip to China. An exotic disease from another country is only [...]

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Influenza Still Widespread in AZ

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:50-07:00February 21st, 2014|Prevention|

A report out by the CDC this week found that people between 18 and 64 years old make up 61% of all flu-related hospitalizations so far this season in the US. In normal years only about 35% of flu hospitalizations are from this age group. H1N1 (the flu strain we saw circulating in the 2009 flu pandemic) is still the [...]

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2014 Comisión Sonora-Arizona

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:51-07:00February 10th, 2014|Prevention|

I just got back from attending the 2014 Comisión Sonora-Arizona meeting (the sister Commission to the Arizona-Mexico Commission). The theme for this year’s Fall/Winter Sonora Plenary was, “Energy Transforms Sonora and Arizona.” I co-chair the Health Services Committee along with Dr. William Neubauer. On the Sonora side, the Health Services Committee is co-chaired by Dr. [...]

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Influenza is Widespread in Arizona

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 24th, 2014|General|

Influenza has been steadily spreading in Arizona over the last few weeks and this week we hit the Widespread Influenza threshold. In fact, the number of cases increased by 50% this week- and several Arizona emergency departments are backed up with substantial wait times. CDC’s report is due to come out Friday… but I’d guess that most states will [...]

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Publishing Our Accreditation Success

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00December 24th, 2013|General|

As soon as the health department accreditation movement started in early 2010 we quickly recognized that statewide public health accreditation could substantially help us with our goal of achieving improvements in public health outcomes in AZ. Our first task was to scope out the resources we’d need to achieve statewide accreditation and then tap into some [...]

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Excellent “Public Health 101” PowerPoint

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:59-07:00November 27th, 2013|General|

One of the objectives in our Strategic Map is Building Awareness of Public Health Value. One of the ways we can do that is to educate community groups, students and other Stakeholders about the return on investment that public health provides and how the system works. Lucky for us the CDC recently published a PowerPoint [...]

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