Arkansas Department of Health Revenue and Competitors

What is public health? One definition - from a 1988 report by the Institute of Medicine's "The Future of Public Health" - is this: "Public health is the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and organizing community efforts to do the following: keep the environment clean, control communicable infections, educate individuals in personal hygiene (like hand washing for example), organize medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and treatment of disease, and develop the social machinery to ensure everyone a healthy standard of living." To say that another way, public health is everything the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) does to protect and improve the health and well-being of all Arkansans - more than 100 services provided statewide by public health professionals to assure that your water is safe, your children have their immunizations, your restaurants are safe and your birth certificate is correct - to name just a few. The ADH is a unified health department, with a main office in Little Rock and 94 local health units in each of the state's 75 counties. We have Centers that oversee all that we do. The Center for Health Advancement has among its many branches Chronic Disease, Family Health, Women, Infants and Children, and Oral Health. The Center for Health Protection has branches for Infectious Disease, Preparedness and Emergency Response, Health Systems and Injury Prevention. The Center for Local Public Health is at the heart of the department. Our local health units provide services to communities across the state. Our Hometown Health Improvement Initiative is a process coordinated through our local health units in partnership with community stakeholders that takes a close look at the issues in local communities. Through this collaboration, health strategies are developed and implemented to improve these local health issues. The Center for Public Health Practice includes branches for Health Statistics and Epidemiology, our "disease detectives" who track the spread of communicable diseases like mumps, measles and chicken pox. In addition, our Public Health Laboratory tests and reports on samples from all over the state - water samples, human samples for disease, even samples for rabies. This state-of-the-art laboratory is prepared for a pandemic flu or a bioterrorist event, as well. Supporting the various service programs throughout ADH is Administration which includes finance, human resources, information technology, legal, minority health, community support, health communication and marketing, tobacco prevention and cessation, policies and procedures and facilities support. The mission of the Department is to protect and improve the health and well-being of all Arkansans. We do this with the support of more than 5,000 dedicated employees and public and private partners. All employees in our diverse workforce are expected to exemplify professionalism in everything they do. They are passionate about what they do because they are making a difference by helping people make their lives healthier.