The Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) Program enables drug addicted criminal defendants to plead guilty to an offense and then enter a residential, therapeutic community treatment system for three years as an alternative to a prison sentence. The Program begins with three months of in-patient, residential drug treatment followed by wraparound recovery support services managed by a resources specialist, including transitional housing, literacy services, higher education, job training and placement services, and counseling, accompanied by drug testing, probation monitoring, and regular court hearings.

From 2010 to early 2013, under the leadership of the Pima County Health Department, organizations and community members engaged in a comprehensive community health assessment and improvement planning process. The goal of this intensive, community-driven process was to examine the current health needs of Pima County residents and determine how to best address them.

This report is a summary of the Pima County Community Health Assessment that was conducted in 2011. As facilitator, the Pima County Health Department examined existing data describing the community, surveyed residents and stakeholders about their perceptions of the health status of Pima County, and presented these findings to the Community Health Assessment Taskforce. The community members who comprised the taskforce evaluated the information and identified five priorities that would make a significant positive impact on the health status of Pima County residents.

Assessing and addressing the public’s changing needs is a challenging task. The Health Department uses a variety of measures to evaluate program accomplishments while holding itself accountable to the taxpayers. The economic challenges faced by the County and its residents require the Department to rely more on quality improvement approaches to maximize the limited resources. Here are some highlights of the Health Department’s achievements in efficiently providing needed public health services.

This floodplain study was prepared to identify the extent and magnitude of flooding within the boundary of the park under existing conditions. The results of the analysis and the associated hydrologic/hydraulic model will serve as the base condition model for all future developments to aid in the planning and design process.

Almost every state hopes to capitalize on the tremendous wealth and job creation that can be generated by high tech science research-and billions of public dollars are being spent. But everyone is just speculating about the lasting value of these investments. While traditional assessments of return on public investment in science and technology tend to track short-term impacts, such as salaries, patents, and licensing revenues, the main foundations for long-term development of a knowledge economy appear to rely on a number of less tangible accomplishments. For example: Connections - the networks that develop between researchers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists; Attention - the publicity generated by the research and its networks that attract businesses and talent to locate in a region; and Talent - the highly skilled workers that such research attracts and trains.

These three indicators of economic success-henceforth called the CAT measures-have yet to be quantified and applied in a useful manner. That is the purpose of this study. It will be conducted in three parts, each with a culminating report. The first part will analyze the FY03 science and technology research activities and results for ASU's Proposition 301 initiatives. The second will develop a methodology for quantifying and utilizing the Institute's CAT measures. The third will field test the CAT methodology on a selected aspect of ASU's Proposition 301-funded research, and analyze results to provide Arizona decision-makers with recommendations to guide future policy.

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.

This publication updates the January 2004 study, New Returns on Investment in the Knowledge Economy: Proposition 301 at Arizona State University, FY 2003. Both works were launched by the report, Seeds of Prosperity: Public Investment in Science and Technology Research (2003), by Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Morrison Institute will periodically publish new material to keep you informed of the status of Proposition 301 investments at Arizona State University.