An update to the Flagstaff Regional Plan 2030 (FRP30), to bring its Road Network Illustration (Map 25) into compliance with Arizona Revised Statute requirements and to resolve inconsistencies between Map 25 and parts of the Flagstaff City Code. This update does not alter the intent of FRP30; it is only concerned with correcting errors, removing legal vulnerability, and improving the readability of FRP30.

The Arizona Department of Health Services sponsored the development of this plan with the intent to set priorities and suggest strategies to address asthma as a serious chronic disease and public health issue. The plan continues the focus placed on asthma in the Healthy People 2010 report. The plan is meant to serve as an ambitious and comprehensive approach to improving the health and quality of life for those with asthma living in Arizona.

Adult tobacco use represents an important and ongoing morbidity, mortality and health care cost problem. The Arizona Department of Health Services Tobacco Education and Prevention Program has been working since 1996 to reduce tobacco use in Arizona. This report presents data from the 2005 Adult Tobacco Surveys in Spanish on adult tobacco use prevalence rates, cessation behaviors, and home smoking bans.

The Arizona Department of Health Services initiated the development of this plan with the intent to set priorities by formulating objectives and suggesting strategies to address chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a serious public health issue in Arizona. This plan begins with a detailed description of chronic obstructive lung disease followed by a discussion of proposed objectives and strategies. The overriding goals of this plan are those stated in the Healthy People 2010: Objectives for Improving Health.

The Arizona Department of Health Services Bureau of Tobacco Education and Prevention began its strategic planning process in August of 2007 and aimed to create a model that focused on effective tobacco control which would engage stakeholders at the local, state and national levels. As such it was critical to ensure that the process was both transparent and participatory, and included input and involvement from the full diversity of populations and regions across Arizona.

During the mid-part of the last decade, when the population growth rate was at its highest, the Phoenix area experienced rapid development and urban sprawl. The result has been an intensification of the Urban Heat Island effect. In this edition of Decades, author Sally Wittlinger discusses this uncomfortable consequence of urbanization.

In a desert city such as Phoenix, summertime heat is a way of life, but how much does the built environment contribute to the intensity of the heat on a summer night? In urbanized Phoenix, nights don’t cool down as much as in the surrounding rural areas and on more and more summer nights, the official Phoenix temperature fails to drop below 90 degrees. Climate plays a huge role in the comfort and quality of life of residents, with numerous implications for tourism, energy demand, water use, and the vulnerability of low-income families.

Both the effect of climate change on our future water supply and the size of the population that will need to share in that supply are uncertainties that water planners must consider when making decisions regarding our future. We have options, but we have to be sure that we use water efficiently to meet our urban, agricultural, and environmental needs. This Policy Points offers a clear, succinct overview of the status of Arizona’s water supply and what the current drought really means for water availability.