Public Health in the Rockies 2026

Public health professionals are uniquely positioned to inform policy, yet many lack formal training in how to effectively translate information into actionable policy change. This skill-building session addresses that gap by equipping participants with practical tools to engage confidently and strategically in the policy-making process.

Grounded in an overview of the Colorado Public Health Association’s 2026 legislative priorities, this session provides both foundational knowledge and applied skill development for students, early-career professionals, and practitioners. Participants will gain clarity on the distinctions between advocacy and lobbying, including the ethical and legal considerations that guide public health engagement. Participants will also learn the basic steps of how a bill becomes law in Colorado, how ballot measures reach voters, and how to use public tools such as the Colorado General Assembly website and public lobbying information to follow policy activity and understand how policy ideas move from concept to implementation.

A central focus of the session is strategic communication, which is an essential competency for advancing public health priorities. Attendees will learn how to translate complex information into clear, compelling narratives and tailor messaging to resonate with diverse decision-makers. Emphasis will be placed on identifying policy windows, aligning messages with stakeholder priorities, and delivering concise, persuasive policy pitches in small groups.

To support skill development, participants will engage in interactive learning activities, including a policy message sorting exercise and role-playing scenarios. These hands-on components allow attendees to practice crafting and delivering policy arguments, responding to feedback, and adapting their communication approach in real time. This applied practice is designed to build both confidence and competence in policy engagement.

This session reflects public health best practices by centering evidence-informed decision-making, cross-sector collaboration, and effective communication as drivers of policy change. It aligns with the conference theme, Stronger Together: Public Health in the Heart of the Rockies, by emphasizing the collective role public health professionals play in shaping policies that improve population health outcomes.

By the end of the session, participants will be better prepared to engage in policy discussions, contribute to advocacy efforts within their organizations and communities, and translate evidence into actionable policy solutions. Ultimately, this session empowers attendees to move from data to decision-maker, strengthening their ability to “get a seat at the table” and advance impactful public health policies.

Policies founded in evidence-based public health research and practice have the potential to benefit people and sustainably improve community health. Many policymakers want the information that public health practitioners and researchers can provide. However, evidence and research with policy implications frequently fails to make it into the hands of decision makers or is not packaged in a way that is accessible or understandable by a wide variety of relevant and influential audiences, including organizational and governmental policymakers, advocates, and civically engaged groups. Public health practitioners and researchers need tools and strategies to translate their knowledge for decision makers to advance timely, evidence-based policy.




After a didactic presentation on theory and scholarship related to public narrative, participants will break out into small groups to collectively develop and improve a narrative to support policy change. Selection of characters, characters’ portrayal as heroes, victims, or villains, setting descriptions, and placement of the narrative at the individual, organizational, or structural level shift the understanding of audiences, directing attention in ways that can influence support.



Participants will receive effective tools and tailored feedback they can use in their own current, planned, or recent public health activities. Participants will develop skills that directly apply to Colorado’s core foundational public health capabilities of communications and policy development and support.



Content to be presented: Participants will learn how to develop persuasive, strategic stories that motivate change for specific audiences. The presenters will provide tools to help attendees develop narratives that can drive timely and actionable policy change within governments and organizations.



Proposed schedule:



Didactic presentation (approximately 40 minutes): discussion on persuasive messaging and public narrative rooted in academic research and scholarship.



Small group breakouts (approximately 30 minutes): participants will break into small groups to collectively develop and improve their narrative to support policy change.



Large group report-out and discussion (20 minutes): all participants will reconvene and share their experiences and reflections about the session.



Evaluation and measurement of skills developed: this will happen during the small group breakout sessions and large group report out of the activity, during which attendees’ communications strategies will be evaluated and workshopped in real time. Participants will also complete a post-workshop evaluation.

Healthcare emergency preparedness and response depend on strong collaboration between healthcare systems, public health agencies, emergency management organizations, and community partners. The Regional Disaster Health Response System (RDHRS) in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Region VIII was established to strengthen medical surge capabilities, improve regional coordination, and build partnerships that enhance readiness for catastrophic events. One capability developed through this effort is the Patient and Family Reunification Virtual Call Center, a scalable, low-cost solution created through collaboration between the Mountain Plains Regional Disaster Health Response System (MPRDHRS), the Colorado Volunteer Mobilizer (CVM), and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).

The reunification program was designed to address a recurring challenge during disasters and mass casualty incidents: healthcare systems are often overwhelmed by family inquiries while simultaneously managing patient care operations. Over five years, the capability was refined through planning, stakeholder engagement, operational design, drills, and full-scale exercises involving healthcare systems, public health agencies, volunteer organizations, emergency management, and community partners across Colorado and HHS Region 8. The model uses a cloud-based virtual call center staffed by trained volunteers and supported by a secure, shared database providing privacy-compliant patient location information.

Exercises and operational testing demonstrated that the virtual call center can rapidly scale to manage several hundred calls per hour, reducing the burden on hospitals and improving coordination among response partners. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the RDHRS program, lessons learned from the first five years of implementation, opportunities for regional collaboration, and practical strategies for building or strengthening reunification capabilities within their own jurisdictions.

Background / Purpose: The tobacco retail environment is a critical touchpoint for reducing youth tobacco and nicotine use and eliminating disparities. In Colorado, tobacco retailer licensing and compliance monitoring are managed by multiple agencies and published independently. The Tobacco Retail Access Colorado (TRAC) Dashboard integrates these disparate datasets into an interactive geospatial mapping application. TRAC empowers communities, especially those disproportionately impacted by tobacco harms, to visualize their local tobacco retail landscape and drive evidence-based change.

Methods: TRAC was developed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Tobacco Program through a participatory process with end-users, including Local Public Health Agencies (LPHAs), policy experts, and compliance inspectors. The dashboard integrates state tobacco licensing data with compliance checks from multiple agencies (federal, state, and local). Data are overlaid on a map with school locations, youth-serving facilities, and area-level sociodemographic indicators. The information can be viewed item-by-item or summarized at multiple geographic scales (municipal, county, multi-county collaborative region) to support everything from individual retailer education to jurisdiction-wide policy planning.

Results: TRAC increases data accessibility and visibility statewide. It is actively used by LPHAs and community partners to monitor compliance, uncover trends, and communicate with stakeholders. To ensure equitable access for jurisdictions with limited geospatial capacity, the tool is deployed alongside training and ongoing technical assistance.

Implications: Consolidating disparate data at multiple scales enables a more complete understanding of retailer behavior and strengthens local capacity for targeted monitoring, enforcement, and advocacy. By increasing transparency, public health professionals can implement actionable, equity-focused tobacco control strategies to protect youth.

Audience Engagement: To offer attendees a chance to experience the dashboard in action, this session will feature a live demonstration of the dashboard followed by a hands-on data-gathering exercise. Attendees will navigate the dashboard to extract jurisdictional metrics and brainstorm evidence-informed policy recommendations.

Background/Purpose: Searching for data to support improving our public health planning has never been easier. Navigating through, summarizing, visualizing and making sense of the data remains difficult. To make your job easier and to promote community engagement with data, CDPHE’s team of mapping experts are promoting the use of our Open Data website. What is Open Data? A free and easily accessible website where you can search for, compare, download data and create your own maps and data visualizations using over 150 updated geographically-enabled datasets directly related to Colorado’s public health, environmental quality, emergency preparedness, socio-demographic, economic, and housing concerns.

Methods/Results: Examining data with a geographic lens allows us to understand variations and patterns among data, and to explore the contributing factors that may be influencing these shifting patterns. The CDPHE Open Data website was developed to support mapping and visualization, data management, analytics, decision support, sharing and collaboration. The website provides access to recently updated health outcome and risk behavior datasets including risk behaviors (e.g. mental distress, obesity, physical activity, smoking), key health equity indicators (e.g. diabetes, low birth weight, opioid poisoning, health professional shortage areas), and established socio-demographic and economic factors (e.g. employment, housing costs, income, educational attainment). In addition, address-level locational data on community level resource providers are also published including health facilities, community behavioral health centers, disability-resource providers, licensed childcare providers, schools, and substance-abuse treatment programs.

Implications: Attendees of this presentation will receive a thorough tour of the CDPHE Open Data website and its tools, enabling them to create their own data visualizations and provide feedback as to how it could be applied in their work. Instructors will also lead the audience through a case study in how the tools provided through the Open Data website can be applied to create community-level data visualizations.

Poor air quality poses risks to children and young adults, with student athletes being particularly vulnerable due to their elevated breathing rates during physical activity. To better characterize youth exposures, we deployed a network of low-cost sensors that measure outdoor PM2.5 and PM10 at 35 high school athletic fields across Utah, and that measure indoor PM2.5 and CO2 at 15 early childhood education centers. During approximately one year of measurements (April 2024–May 2025), fifteen high schools recorded a total of 28 days exceeding the PM2.5 24-hour AQI threshold for Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (35.5 µg/m³) and 2 days exceeding the Unhealthy threshold (55.5 µg/m³). Meanwhile, 21 schools recorded 46, 11, 4, and 6 exceedance days for PM10 at the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (155 µg/m³), Unhealthy (255 µg/m³), Very Unhealthy (355 µg/m³), and Hazardous (425 µg/m³) thresholds, respectively. Indoors, mean PM2.5 concentrations were low across early childhood education centers (1.32±1.18 µg/m3), yet eight childcare centers experienced a total of 50 days exceeding the WHO 24-hour PM2.5 concentration guideline (15 µg/m3). Additionally, our team has collaborated with the State Board of Education, the State Department of Public Health, athletic trainer/medical associations, and school nurses to develop uniform air quality guidelines for outdoor activities. These guidelines have led to state legislation that is currently under consideration. These results support the need for localized, actionable air quality information in school environments.