General – Page 28 – AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog

Here you will find topics ranging from current events that affect public health in Arizona to overall information about the Arizona Department of Health Services

Heroin: The Sleepy Killer

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:53-07:00 February 4th, 2014|General|

I’ve written several posts about how prescription painkillers kill more Arizonans than heroin and cocaine combined- but heroin is still the No. 1 killer among the illegal drugs. One hundred people died from a heroin overdose in AZ in 2013 (vs. about 1,000 from prescription drugs). Heroin is very addictive. According to NIDA, about 23% of people that try heroin will become [...]

Now Accepting Applications for Loan Repayment Programs

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:53-07:00 January 30th, 2014|General|

Getting access to primary care providers is critical to disease prevention. The problem is that there aren’t enough primary care providers nationwide. Arizona is short by about 300 primary care physicians, 250 dentists and about 70 psychiatrists. That’s why Arizona has been aggressive in their efforts to recruit providers to work in Arizona, specifically in [...]

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Public Health Initiatives for Refugees in AZ

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00 January 28th, 2014|General|

Last year 3,663 refugees resettled in Arizona from 45 different countries (about 1/3 were from Iraq). Refugees have a variety of pressing social, economic and health needs when they arrive. That’s where our ADHS Refugee Health Program comes in. Our Refugee Health Coordinator, Zachary Holden, works with partners to ensure that refugees arrive healthy and maintain good [...]

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Our Most Popular Annual Report Goes Mobile

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00 January 27th, 2014|General|

Every year our most popular annual report (it’s not even close) is called the Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report. We released the 2012 Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report this week- and this time it’s mobile friendly so can pull it up on your IPad, IPhone and other Android devices. The document contains hotlinks and [...]

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Influenza is Widespread in Arizona

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00 January 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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Medical Marijuana News

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00 January 17th, 2014|General, Licensing|

We published our mid-year update of the medical marijuana annual report this week. It contains different data than our standard annual report in that we’re reporting aggregate dispensary transaction data. In the report you’ll see that there were about 422,000 transactions made at dispensaries in ‘13 among the 40,000 patients (about 10 transactions/patient/year). Dispensaries sold [...]

Public Health Poem to end the Year

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00 December 27th, 2013|General|

The Ambulance Down In The Valley A Poem About Public Health Prevention by Joseph Malins (1895) 'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed, though to walk near its crest was so pleasant; but over its terrible edge there had slipped a duke and full many a peasant. So the people said something would [...]

Smart, Strong and Driven – Arizona’s 2013 babies

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00 December 26th, 2013|General|

Arizona is on a great trajectory for success if you go by baby names. The most popular boy’s name in 2013 was Liam which means strong-willed warrior and the most popular girl’s name – Sophia – means wisdom. Liam, a form of the name William, jumped to first place from fourth last year, but it [...]

Publishing Our Accreditation Success

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00 December 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 [...]

Arizona Public Health Association gets National Recognition

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:57-07:00 December 18th, 2013|General|

Congratulations to Arizona Public Health Association (AzPHA) for gaining national recognition for its work- snagging the 2013 National Affiliate of the Year Award from the American Public Health Association. For 85 years, AzPHA has helped shape public health in Arizona working to create smoke-free environments and access to healthcare. In this year alone, the Arizona affiliate [...]

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ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES

Health and Wellness for All Arizonans

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES

Health and Wellness for All Arizonans

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