While many parts of the country are still in the throes of extreme winter weather, here in Arizona, we're seeing warmer temperatures and beautiful weather. This is the time of year Arizonans are outside getting active. It's a great time to go for bike rides, take walks around the neighborhood, get the kids and dogs out [...]
Foodborne outbreaks are unpredictable and often require a rapid response that includes fieldwork and sample collection to identify the source of the outbreak. Our Food Safety Environmental Services Program recognizes the importance of being prepared for these unplanned emergencies, which is why we always have foodborne outbreak response kits at the ready. A few years ago, after [...]
Our Bureau of Nutrition and Physical Activity competed successfully to have their SNAP-Ed interventions included in the 2016 SNAP-Ed Strategies and Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States. The comprehensive criteria used in the process focused on policy, systems and environmental change and the scoring process was rigorous. This national publication also includes many new cutting edge approaches from [...]
This week's flu report shows our influenza activity in the state has reached a "widespread" classification. More than 3,700 cases of flu have been reported throughout Arizona, with 51 percent of those in Maricopa County. There have been 3,710 lab-confirmed influenza cases reported for the 2015-2016 influenza season in Arizona. Cases have been reported in all 15 counties, with [...]
Our Healthcare-Associated Infections Program, in collaboration with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Grand Canyon Chapter, hosted their state of the state meeting last month. This annual event is dedicated to program updates and education from many areas of the ADHS Bureau of Epidemiology and Disease Control Services. The event took place [...]
Arizona continues to be among the nation's leaders in tobacco control and is ranked in the top ten in several categories, including tobacco use among adults, youth, and pregnant women. According to national and state surveys, tobacco use declined in the past year by an estimated 40,000 adults and 13,000 high school aged youth. Likewise, [...]
The Association of Public Health Laboratories, a national organization dedicated to strengthening laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the United States and globally, has requested that the Arizona State Public Health Laboratory present its biosafety outreach program in a national webinar. Arizona’s highly successful biosafety program includes a variety of activities designed to develop [...]
We’re always striving for ways to make routine tasks easier and more efficient so we can focus efforts on the things that matter most for the people that we serve. Over the past several years, our immunization program has been strengthening our ability to leverage electronic systems to improve vaccine practices across Arizona . Since 1995, we’ve [...]
If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve noticed a lot of attention on Zika virus, an emerging mosquito-borne disease that’s spreading across the Americas. As of today, no cases of Zika have been found in Arizona, but several other U.S. states are reporting cases of Zika virus in travelers returning from countries where the [...]
Our staff will be hitting the road this week, along with local and federal public health partners, to provide in-person refresher education to healthcare providers about Rocky Mountain spotted fever. These presentations include an overview of the history and epidemiology of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in Arizona, clinical presentation, recommendations for diagnosis and treatment, and [...]
