“To improve health in our community, it’s important to understand what the greatest needs are, and where public health efforts can have the greatest impact.”
Every five years, Boulder County Public Health conducts a Community Health Assessment by reviewing health data, and collecting input from local residents and community organizations.
“The goal is to identify and prioritize the most pressing health issues affecting our community,” says Summer Laws, former Health Systems and Policy Planner for Boulder County Public Health. “The 2017 assessment process – including dozens of countywide community conversations from February through April – identified mental health as our focus for the next five years.”
Adds Megan Noel, Health Planning and Evaluation Specialist: “To improve health in our community, it’s important to understand what the greatest needs are, and where public health efforts can have the greatest impact.
“So we organized Community Health Conversations with 53 groups, including more than 600 people to ensure that we heard and integrated the community’s perspective – particularly from those who are experiencing barriers to health.
“At each meeting with residents, we asked ‘If you could wave a magic wand and improve your health – including mental health – or the health of your friends, family, and/or loved ones living in Boulder County, what would happen or change?’”
All told, residents representing the diversity of our community – in terms of demographics like age, geography, race/ethnicity, economic status, and more – offered some 3,000 ideas about what could improve their health, with 1,776 of them marked as priorities.
According to Megan, “What an assessment like this allows you to do is consider all available knowledge and information about the status of the local population’s health – including the Community Foundation’s TRENDS Report – as well as look outside Boulder County to learn what other counties are doing to help their communities be healthy and thrive.”
The disciplined, multi-step assessment and prioritization process eventually shortlisted increasing access to healthy housing and improving mental health, before landing on the latter. Countywide programs and projects to improve mental health through 2022 will be led by a multi-disciplinary team of experts, agency representatives, and individuals who are directly impacted.
“So far, we’ve trained more than 800 people in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), and supported and helped pass state legislation to improve mental health,” Summer says. “Research and planning to better navigate and access mental health services are also underway.” As well, Boulder County Public Health was part of a regional effort to launch the Let’s Talk Colorado campaign to support open, honest, and positive conversations about mental health to help combat common stigma.
Other efforts to meet the challenge of mental health stigma and related community concerns are also underway.
