Public Health in the Rockies 2026

Background: Health equity initiatives in Colorado are navigating mounting uncertainty due to shifts in public funding and the social safety net. In September 2025, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Health Equity sustained a significant budget reduction to its Health Disparities and Community Grant program, which supports 27 grantees statewide to deliver projects that advance health equity. The Office pivoted from an external evaluation vendor to an internally led evaluation focused on grantee-responsiveness. This presentation reports on the redesign process and examines how its new evaluation strategies strengthened program implementation and adaptiveness amid ongoing uncertainty.

Methods: To inform this redesign, the Office conducted several interviews to understand the limitations of the prior evaluation and identify ideas for improvements. Interviews revealed that reporting processes were burdensome, ambiguous, and did not always capture grantee projects. The Office then comprehensively redesigned the evaluation plan, protocols, and tools. For example, evaluators replaced written progress reports with video calls and created a collaborative data collection process using a living, mixed-methods form. The Office also provided technical assistance to help grantees define success, ensuring metrics became more useful and reflective of project goals. The Office’s evaluators conducted extensive data quality assurance using a rubric to assess criteria such as completeness, validity, and community responsiveness. The team then conducted data remediation and delivered tailored technical assistance for grantees with lower evaluation capacity.

Results: The first year of implementation substantially improved grantee satisfaction and data quality. This redesign allowed the Office to fulfill its evaluation aims while also enhancing grantee evaluation capacity.

Implications: This collaborative model demonstrates that state grantmaking evaluations can be reimagined to be more responsive to grantees and shifting circumstances without sacrificing methodological rigor. The presentation concludes with lessons to inform more equitable evaluation in uncertain times.