Melanoma Reporting
Melanoma skin cancer is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Many believe that Arizona has similar age adjusted incidence rates to Australia, the world’s highest rate. But during the middle of the last decade, the Arizona Cancer Registry data showed a puzzling decline in cancer rates.
The AZ Melanoma Task Force […]
Vital Records & Same Gender Marriage
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Arizona began recognizing same gender marriages (as an outcome of a recent federal court case). The court decision will influence some of the things that we do in our Vital Records shop – mostly as we process of death certificates. Arizona law
2014 AIDS Walk
HIV/AIDS affects or infects over 15,000 people in the state of Arizona. HIV has become a chronic disease, one that can be managed, which means most people are not dying of AIDS. However, there are still a […]
Vaccines- Calling the Shots
Every time a different disease surfaces in the news like MERS, Ebola or Enterovirus D 68, one of the first questions people ask is, “Is there a vaccine for it?” A new documentary created for NOVA on PBS – Vaccines – Calling the […]
The Governor’s Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response
This week the Governor signed an Executive Order establishing the Governor’s Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response. The Council consists of 20 public health, health-care, and other multi-sectorial partners, with the ADHS Director as the Chair. Our task will be to ensure that Arizona […]
How infectious is Ebola?
Epidemiologists (aka disease investigators) use a number of tools to estimate the contagiousness and spread of a disease. One such tool is the R0 (R nought), which represents the average number of people one sick person will infect. It’s calculated by estimating the chances of exposure, number […]
