AHF Issue Briefs

Arizona Health Futures Issue Briefs provide an overview of critical health issues in Arizona from a public policy perspective. They are intended to present a balanced, independent assessment of health policy and resource allocation choices facing the state.

Weave the People: Threading Healthy Communities (November 2008)
An amalgamation of expert thinking, local knowledge, history and stories applied to health within the shifing context of community in the 21st Century.

Balancing Act: Ethics in Health Care (August 2008)
A comprehensive overview of ethical dilemmas and strategies for addressing them, produced in partnership with bioethicists at St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center.

Gray Land: Housing for People with Serious Mental Illness in Maricopa County (January 2008)
A collaborative inquiry into the challenges, opportunities and successes to be found in a complex and critical environment.

Collaborate to Compete: A Prescription for Value-Based Health Care in Arizona (April 2007)
There's a revolution coming to American Medicine, centered on delivery of true "value" in health care. Collaborate to Compete unpacks the current situation, posits a prescription for value-based health care, including scenarios for the year 2030.

Flashpoint: Children, Adolescents and Psychotropic Medicines (August 2006)
Are psychotropic medicines helping our children, or do they represent the "medicalization" of normal behavior without considering long-term consequences? Find out in this report.

Learn more. We surveyed sources from 1992 to the present in developing Flashpoint. Below you'll find information on those works, along with links where permitted.

Psychotropic medications bibliography, 1992-1999

Psychotropic medications bibliography, 2000-2003

Psychotropic medications bibiliography, 2004-2006

Squeezing the Rock II: Maricopa County's Health Safety Net (May 2006)
An update of our 2002 report that tracks what's changed and what hasn't among principal providers and clients.

Dancing on a Pin: Health Planning in Arizona (November 2005)
The state of health planning - or lack thereof - in Arizona, and what we can do about it.

Mind, Mood and Message: Pathways in Community Behavioral Health (January 2005)
Community survey implications and the use of resilience in changing the behavioral health paradigm.

Arizona CAN! Coverage and Access Now (Winter 2004)
Analysis of four models to expand health insurance coverage in Arizona.

Resilience: Health in a New Key (Fall 2003)
Exploration of a strength-based approach to health and community development.

Health in a New Key Pocket Guide
Pocket version of Resilience: Health in a New Key.

The Humpty Dumpty Syndrome: Integration and Behavioral Health (Winter 2003)
Strategies to integrate behavioral health and primary care.

Building a Public Health Movement in Arizona (Fall 2002)
Exploration of the role and relationship of public health to the larger healthcare system.

BOOM OR BUST? The Future of the Health Care Workforce in Arizona (Spring 2002)
Overview of health professions in Arizona.

Squeezing the Rock: Maricopa County's Health Safety Net (Winter 2002)
A look at the organizations that serve the uninsured, Medicaid and other vulnerable populations.

Trauma: The Canary in the Mine (Fall 2001)
Issues concerning level one trauma centers in Arizona.

Got Quality? The Search for Perfection in an Imperfect Health Care System (Spring 2001)
Defining the concept of quality in healthcare.