The CDC and The Pew Charitable Trusts, in collaboration with 12 national health organizations, released a joint letter earlier this month on the importance of antibiotic stewardship in outpatient settings. Outpatient stewardship refers to coordinated efforts to promote appropriate prescribing of antibiotics for non-hospitalized patients in clinics, doctor’s offices, and emergency rooms. The overarching goal is to [...]
Public health officials regularly explore new and creative ways to promote health and wellness for Arizonans. On Saturday November 5, our staff and Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) join in a new partnership with the Phoenix Zoo to host a free flu vaccine clinic accompanied with outreach on disease prevention. Last year’s flu [...]
Arizona drivers who have ordered the Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Awareness specialty license plate have helped raise nearly $2 million for cancer screening in the past decade. There has been nearly 110,000 pink ribbon annual vehicle registrations issued by the Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division since 2006 when legislation authorizing the plates took effect. [...]
Last week we released our new public awareness campaign, Vape is a Lie, that teaches kids in Arizona about the potential dangers of using e-cigarettes. Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical that can have several negative effects on your health. There is no safe level of nicotine for children. After the release of the campaign, [...]
Even though the largest measles outbreak of the year officially ended on August 8, the work did not stop there. State and local disease detectives, along with CDC, continued to review all rash illnesses reported in the detention center before the first measles cases were identified. The goal was to see if, looking back, these [...]
On October 6, our Medical Marijuana program concluded the processing of medical marijuana dispensary applications by holding a random selection process for applications meeting the criteria. Our staff worked with accountants on the process which included nine random selections. Our Digital Media Team provided live stream video of the event which can be found on [...]
October is MRSA awareness month, and October 2 was World MRSA Day. MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a bacterial infection that is resistant to many types of antibiotics. These events help raise the awareness of MRSA around the globe and to activate survivors, communities, governments, healthcare officials, and personnel to join together to [...]
This week we launched a new public awareness campaign called “Vape is a Lie” teaches youth about the dangers of nicotine and e-cigarettes. Vape is a Lie features a series of three public service announcements and a website, Vapeisalie.org, where Arizona youth can learn more about the dangerous chemicals often found in e-cigarettes, commonly [...]
This week, we acknowledge National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week and this year’s important theme: Lead Free Kids for a Healthy Future. The Arizona Department of Health Services is participating in this event along with CDC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other state childhood lead poisoning prevention [...]
The National Immunization Surveys (NIS), sponsored by CDC, are a group of surveys used to monitor immunization coverage across the country. The Child National Immunization Survey assesses data for children, ages 19-35 months of age. Data from 2015 were released earlier this month. For 2015, the NIS shows that Arizona has reached the Healthy People20/20 [...]
