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.

A number of significant positive and negative economic impacts could result from Pima County's SDCP and related programs, according to an analysis of existing research on large-scale conservation planning undertaken to provide a framework for community decision-making. This report offers no final verdict on the net economic impact of Pima County's current, ambitious initiatives in habitat conservation and growth management. However, it does provide a framework for future assessment and decision-making.

Though the Great Recession may be officially over, all is not well in Arizona. Three years after the collapse of a massive real estate “bubble,” the deepest economic downturn in memory exposed and exacerbated one of the nation’s most profound state fiscal crises, with disturbing implications for Arizona citizens and the state’s long-term economic health.

This brief takes a careful look at the Grand Canyon State’s fiscal situation, examining both Arizona’s serious cyclical budget shortfall—the one resulting from a temporary collapse of revenue due to the recession—as well as the chronic, longer-term, and massive structural imbalances that have developed largely due to policy choices made in better times. This primer employs a unique methodology to estimate the size of the state’s structural deficit and then explores the mix of forces, including the large permanent tax reductions, that created them. It also highlights some of the dramatic impacts these fiscal challenges are having on service-delivery as well as on local governments. The brief suggests some of the steps state policymakers must take to close their budget gaps over the short and longer term. First, it urges better policymaking, and prods leaders to broaden, balance, and diversify the state’s revenue base while looking to assure a long-haul balance of taxing and spending. And second, it recommends that Arizona improve the information-sharing and budgeting processes through which fiscal problems are understood—so they may ultimately be averted.

A series of 51 individual “stakeholder” interviews and two focus groups conducted with members of the Pima County business community in fall, 2001, documented significantly divided opinion about the likely economic impacts of the county’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (SDCP). The results of the stakeholder inquiries were striking. Only one major finding reflected consensus, while several others revealed sharp differences of opinion in the business community about the potential economic impacts of the SDCP and associated initiatives.

What do we mean by "shoes waiting to drop?" We mean the trends that are already well under way — but that we can't quite see yet. These trends could overwhelm us if we don't spot them now and aggressively use our knowledge to plot our course for the future. The five "shoes" highlighted in the report are: A Talent Shake Up; Latino Education Dilemma; A Fuzzy Economic Identity; Lost Stewardship; and The Revenue Sieve.