General

/General

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

Behavioral Health Kicking the Habit

By | September 13th, 2011|Behavioral Health, General|

For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services.  The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish [...]

Comments Off on Behavioral Health Kicking the Habit

Own your Own Health Data

By | September 12th, 2011|General|

For years, you’ve heard that you should take your health care into your own hands  It may soon be easier – the federal Health and Human Services Secretary wants you to be able to access your electronic health care records. One key argument to give people access is if they know what is there, they [...]

Comments Off on Own your Own Health Data

Contagion

By | September 9th, 2011|General, Preparedness, Prevention|

In all my years in public health this is the first crack I’ve taken at being a movie critic- so give me a little slack on this one.  I checked out the new movie called Contagion- and really liked it. I won’t give up too much information and spoil the film, but it’s basically a fictional [...]

Who is Louis Pasteur?

By | September 8th, 2011|General|

In 1862, a French chemist named Louis Pasteur discovered that heat kills germs in liquids, preventing bacterial growth, food spoilage and foodborne illnesses. He used his discovery to invent methods that have been used for the last 150 years as a sanitary treatment for milk – which at the time was a prime source of TB.  His experiment?  He exposed [...]

Geneology

By | September 7th, 2011|General|

Ever wandered about your family tree?  Electra Anderson recently started doing some research and was able to find all 13 of her dad’s siblings birth certificates using a resource developed at ADHS by Keith Laubham with nothing but some ingenuity.  It’s called http://genealogy.az.gov/.  Compared to other states, this site is the easiest and most versatile to search.   This [...]

Comments Off on Geneology

Lunch!

By | September 6th, 2011|General|

Some of my most memorable moments of elementary school are about things that happened at lunchtime.  Back in the day, lunchtime lasted just as long as all the other periods.  It’s still that way in some places- but in others lunch hasn’t been competing for time as successfully with the other academic priorities. The School [...]

Comments Off on Lunch!

Going the Extra Mile

By | September 6th, 2011|General|

Our behavioral health licensing team gets complaints from many sources- but seldom do we read about potentially dangerous conditions in the newspaper.  But that’s just what happened earlier this month.  Our licensing team awoke to read an article in a local newspaper in which the operator stated that they had laid off their clinical director, nurse, [...]

Comments Off on Going the Extra Mile

The Arizona Biomedical Research Commission Patent Factoid

By | September 1st, 2011|General|

The ADHS’ Arizona Biomedical Research Commission has submitted over 66 patent requests worldwide, and has been granted 9 patents within the US in collaboration with ASU and the U of A. The Commission has 22 patent requests published or pending in 7 different countries. Many of the granted patents are anti-cancer compounds. The ABRC continues to [...]

Comments Off on The Arizona Biomedical Research Commission Patent Factoid

Leverage

By | September 1st, 2011|General|

Much of what we do in public health depends on the system seeking out “leverage” meaning designing interventions that have high impact with minimal cost.  Malena Bazurto and the Apache County Health District recently won a national award for her creative idea incorporating leverage.  Malena noticed that St. John’s had little walk-able space for folks to get [...]

Comments Off on Leverage

Extreme Heat Video

By | August 31st, 2011|General, Prevention|

Last summer we applied for funding from the CDC under the Climate-Ready Initiative to develop the Extreme Weather and Public Health materials.  The program is focusing on heat related illnesses and ways to increase knowledge of healthy responses to excessive heat situations.  The program worked with Kate Hoy and Dallas Teat to produce a training [...]

Comments Off on Extreme Heat Video