Every year the March of Dimes releases grades based on the final National Center for Health Statistics data. Arizona received a “B” grade for the 2017 Premature Birth Report Card. While the preterm birth rate worsened in 43 states in 2016, the rate remained the same in Arizona. A premature birth is defined as the [...]
Arizona may be known for its deserts, but forests make up nearly 27 percent of Arizona’s land. Recently, several wildfires have arisen across the state. By June 28, the Goodwin Fire in Yavapai County has spread to more than 20,000 acres. The Saddle Fire has also grown to nearly 5,000 acres in Cochise County. Evacuations [...]
The new eWIC is officially live in a beautiful new clinic in Casa Grande. WIC families will receive the same foods but shop using the new Arizona eWIC card rather than paper checks. Moms will find that eWIC is flexible and convenient as they can buy their WIC foods as needed and families will carry [...]
Between April and September, the Arizona WIC Program's outreach efforts included a new project to increase awareness of the WIC Program and increase participation among eligible women, infants, and children. The project has been a success with an increase of more than 10,000 participants a month. In September, more than 153,000 individuals received WIC services [...]
There’s increasing evidence that whether a person will have a healthy weight as an adult is influenced by nutrition and physical activity in the first 5 years of life. In fact, a new study this week in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that overweight 5-year-olds are 4 x more likely to become obese [...]
One of the ways we create good public health interventions is by studying outcomes. This week, the 20th Annual Child Fatality Review report came out- which examines all 854 deaths of children under the age of 18 in 2012. The Report reviews the circumstances of each child’s death, determines preventability and makes recommendations to save children’s lives moving forward. Although the number [...]
The Arizona WIC Program is airing outreach ads in border counties, to ensure WIC clients know about the availability of WIC services in their communities. Several local WIC agencies in the border region are undertaking special actions to promote WIC along with making healthy eating and active living the easy choice in their communities. The [...]
We finally got some better news from the childhood obesity public health front this week. Tuesday’s CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that childhood obesity rates are stabilizing or decreasing slightly across the country. In fact, 19 states had a significant downward trend in obesity prevalence among low-income preschoolers. There was no change in [...]
We’re happy to unveil the new Arizona WIC Program website, which has been redesigned with a fresh new look that is more user friendly. Last year the WIC webpage had more than 76,000 unique visitors with nearly 350,000 page views- making it one of our most popular sites. The redesigned site includes a Find a [...]
No doubt the word “ Sequestration” is front and center in your vocabulary these days. This is just a quick note to forecast how it might impact our mission. For starters… the main impacts from federal sequestration (i.e. the federal budget reduction for some programs) will be related to the services that we provide and [...]
