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State firearm survey data can inform firearm injury prevention strategies—read recommendations for developing state firearm surveys and applying findings.

Support for programs and policies that encourage positive mental health in early childhood and provides support for parents and caregivers to have the best chance to improve mental health across the life course.

PrEP is a powerful tool to reduce new HIV infections; expanding access to PrEP is a priority within the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative. One way to increase access to PrEP is by allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense it.

Health providers have widely used telehealth to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 infection and to improve access to healthcare services thanks in large part to policy changes and regulations. This brief explores how state and territorial health agencies (S/THAs) are responding to COVID-19 through telehealth policy and operational changes, as well as how telehealth has quickly emerged as a tool to improve health equity.

Evidence suggests that access to healthy, safe, and affordable housing is connected to preventing suicide and overdose, with state and federal programs supporting access to housing for people with low incomes, substance use disorders, and/or mental illness. This brief provides an overview of policies to increase housing opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, substance use disorder, and/or mental illness during the 2021 state legislative sessions.

This brief outlines some of the barriers that pregnant and postpartum women with opioid use disorder face, as well as examples of state legislation passed to address recovery program implementation, treatment funding and insurance coverage, and provider education.

Data summary of the Las Animas-Huerfano Counties Million Hearts learning collaborative, aiming to improve the use and sharing of clinical data to better identify individuals with undiagnosed or uncontrolled hypertension and support patients diagnosed with hypertension.

Building a Resilience Framework in Colorado Creating Resilient Communities in Colorado Heather Tomlinson, Kerry Wyss Learn how Colorado public health is building community and cross-sector partnerships to build community resilience. Following the 2012 wildfire season and the 2013 Colorado Floods, Colorado recognized the opportunity to better prepare for natural disasters and coordinate efforts across state agencies to build resilience into their regular operations. In 2015, Colorado became the first state to develop a resilience framework and created the Colorado Resiliency Office (CRO) with the goal of building more resilient systems in the face of shocks and stressors. The Colorado Resiliency Working Group (CRWG) is an interagency group that meets on a quarterly basis to collaboratively implement and advance resilience actions and goals. The Colorado Resilience Framework serves as interagency guidance on strengthening resilience and emphasizes finding co-benefits across community sectors, reducing community risk and vulnerability to disruptions, and supporting the state in anticipating and preparing for current and future conditions. The framework is updated every five years to adapt priorities and to keep up with current conditions. Changes from 2015 to 2020 included a shift from focusing heavily on long-term recovery to taking a more holistic approach to resilience. The CRWG is currently working on the 2025 update with a focus on statewide vulnerability where they can have the most impact and prepare for future conditions with available resources. They are also focusing on clear metrics and being able to communicate progress effectively. The state also created a statutory definition of resilience, which has helped with coordination across long- term projects and agencies. Coordination with Partners Resiliency work in Colorado is greatly enhanced by working with a wide range of partners that bring their subject matter expertise to the table. As a state with strong local control, Colorado has prioritized working collaboratively with local partners, providing technical assistance and subject matter expertise to support their work on the ground, from planning support to targeted grant programs. This collaboration helps ensure continuity from the state to the local communities. Colorado’s approach to resilience ensures resilience is integrated within its many agencies. For example, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has continued to evolve and advance their agency’s resiliency work. Beginning March 2025, CDPHE developed a monthly internal working group to funnel knowledge into resilience leadership across CDPHE — including environmental health, chronic disease, environmental justice, disease and public health, and air pollution. Their goal is to build partnerships across internal programs and state agencies. The CRO was first established in the Governor's Office and moved to the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) in 2018. This move strengthened continuity of its long-term work and, given Colorado’s strong local control governance structure, enabled the CRO to further the goals of building a more resilient Colorado by partnering with and supporting local governments with planning and technical assistance to build greater resilience. The CRO offers flexible Future-Ready Technical Assistance Opportunities for state agencies, which helps them apply adaptability and future-visioning lenses to their resiliency principles in programs and operations. To involve the wider network of resilience practitioners within communities across the state, the CRO launched a community of practice on LinkedIn to foster peer-to-peer learning and dialogue and ensure all voices are heard in a collaborative environment. The Governor’s Office of Climate Preparedness and Disaster Recovery (CPO), facilitates cross agency coordination and collaboration while driving proactive state-wide climate preparedness priorities and supports development of the state’s disaster recovery capacity and capabilities. The CPO also coordinates efforts to ensure that the state budget and legislative processes reflect statewide climate preparedness, disaster recovery, and resilience priorities and leads the development of Colorado’s Climate Preparedness Roadmap — a strategic guiding document updated every three years that uses the best available science and data to prioritize near-term climate adaptation actions across Colorado state government. In collaboration with the implementing state agencies, the first Roadmap, released in 2023, set achievable near-term action items ensuring clear steps to strengthen climate resilience and adaptation. Among the actions, the Roadmap outlined the need to tackle extreme heat through a collaborative interagency approach, while better understanding the unique ways that heat affects Colorado. Social and community capacity were also outlined in the framework as a priority. CDPHE has worked with the Governor's Office to evaluate best practices and strategies tailored for each unique region and implemented their first heat plan in 2024. Extreme heat can be deadly and is projected to continue to intensify. CPO takes the lead in coordinating extreme heat work across agencies. They are partnering with the Colorado State Forest Service to pilot solutions such as climate-smart tree planting to help keep people safe during high-heat events by reducing ambient neighborhood temperatures and shading individual homes to lower indoor temperatures and reduce cooling costs for residents. Building Disaster Recovery Capacity Colorado is investing in disaster preparedness and recovery capacity to reduce the impacts of disasters, help communities recover more effectively, and build resilience into recovery efforts. Ensuring strong recoveries allows for the integration of strategic investments in resilience and hazard mitigation, which the state did in partnership with Xcel Energy — in the wake of the Marshall Fire, the state provided financial assistance to rebuild home to high performance standards and integrated wildfire mitigation actions during the rebuild process. In recent years, Colorado has expanded their recovery investments, including the addition of key positions in targeted recovery areas including within CPO, at DOLA within the Division of Housing and within the Division of Local Government, at the Colorado Department of Agriculture, and at the Department of Public Health and Environment. Technical expertise and capacity at the agency level is leveraged to strengthen preparedness and to support recovery from state declared disasters through the Colorado Department of Public Safety's State Recovery Task Force, providing recovery expertise when activated according to their assigned Recovery Support Function (RSF). Colorado partnered with FEMA’s State Technical Assistance for Recovery Strategies Program to develop processes and strategies that can be integrated into the RSF plan updates within the State Emergency Operations Plan, and to refine RSF functions, capabilities, and partnerships. Over the last year, the state has additionally conducted numerous discussion-based exercises to strengthen RSF relationships and operational capability. The state continues to identify and enhance new opportunities in supporting local communities with pre- disaster recovery technical assistance. Examples include: Hosting Department of Public Safety-led regional recovery symposiums. Piloting additional focused recovery workshops that prioritize rural and less resourced communities. Developing and refining disaster recovery planning tools. Offering recovery and resilience toolkits and expertise to local governments led by DOLA. Strengthening integration of disaster considerations into local planning processes. Colorado implemented this work in summer 2025 when the state experienced numerous wildfires in short succession that received state disaster declarations, activation of the State Recovery Task Force, and required close state-local disaster recovery coordination. Ensuring strong recovery capacity and capabilities is critical to long-term resilience, enabling communities to recover more quickly, more completely, and in ways that integrate proactive resilience strategies. A Path Towards Long-Term Sustainability A key element in Colorado’s long-term approach to building resiliency is closely involving the local community. Building robust community planning and response capabilities at the local level allows for agencies to tailor plans to community needs and ensures everyone is engaged in the process. The CRO, in collaboration with state agency partners in the CRWG, developed the Guidance for Local Government Climate Adaptation, which provides comprehensive guidance, funding resources, case studies, and connections to state and federal programs that can provide support in over 25 implementable actions. The CRO has also focused their resiliency work on anticipating what is to come down the road by assessing current and future community needs. An example is the Rural Resiliency and Recovery Roadmap Program, which brought together 16 different regional community teams with over 150 rural jurisdictions and non-governmental partners to support diversifying and strengthening their economies while building regional resiliency following the COVID-19 pandemic. Each regional team developed a roadmap that evaluates local stressors and how conditions may change in the future. This program also looks at what may impact the community from perspectives of housing availability, workforce, and potential resiliency stressors. Another example is the Camp Resilience: A Rural Prosperity Leadership Academy program, which offers a summer camp themed workshop to build rural community capacity to long-term stressors such as droughts, population loss, climate change, and lack of affordable housing. While funding cycle ebbs and flows

Learn how state health agencies are leveraging flexible funding to advance initiatives addressing non-medical factors that influence health.

Learn in this report how Colorado is using policy to address rising syphilis and congenital syphilis cases.

Opportunities for Public Health Agencies to Advance Sustainable Financing of Community Health Worker Programs Advancing Sustainable Financing of Community Health Workers Explore how health officials can play key roles as funders, administrators, and policy designers to advance sustainable financing of community health workers. Many states face upcoming funding gaps for community health worker (CHW) positions, with COVID-19 related grant funding streams expiring. Concurrently, many states are rapidly beginning to cover CHW services under Medicaid. In addition, Medicare launched a new reimbursement opportunity for CHWs in January 2024. These factors create an opportunity for state and territorial health agencies to develop or contribute to equitable reimbursement and robust implementation. This report details how health officials can play key roles as funders, administrators, and policy design champions to ultimately advance sustainable financing of CHW services. Get the Report (PDF) website yes

This report identifies and breaks down seven core value areas that emerge from taking a health in all policies approach to policymaking and programming.

This report examines how four states (Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, and Rhode Island) made use of their Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant funding.

Social determinants of healthcare are the conditions in which people are born, live, work, play, worship, and age. Read how these issues affect population health.

Breastfeeding is considered the gold standard in postnatal care for both birthing persons and infants. Yet racial disparities in breastfeeding initiation and duration rates continue to persist. Effective intervention strategies require a multi-level approach that includes comprehensive legal, policy, and programmatic efforts.

This organizational strategic planning guide, which details seven phases, can help health agencies create or refine strategic plans that are responsive to evolving needs.

This toolkit is designed to support public health leaders in leveraging the policy development process to achieve health equity in their jurisdiction.

Reconciling the tension between public health and civil liberties is one of the most significant challenges of public health law and ethics. The Supreme Court of the United States historically upheld state authority to enact and enforce public health laws that temporarily limit a person’s civil liberties, such as quarantine and isolation powers that restrict a person’s freedom of assembly in order to prevent the spread of contagious disease. There have been many legal challenges to the public health orders issued to slow the spread of COVID-19—many of the claims asserting violations of First Amendment rights of assembly, association, and expression—but they’ve largely been rejected by the courts. However, courts have treated claims asserting violations of the free exercise of religion more favorably, which may indicate an impending shift in how courts analyze the impact state and territorial actions may have on religious organizations.

In the November 2020 election, voters in several states cast their ballots on proposals related to the use of legal and illicit drugs. These ballot proposals influence key public health issues such as tobacco control, substance use prevention and treatment, and mental health—many of them implemented by state health agencies. This post contains a brief summary of the proposals on ballots around the country.

Though now an illegal practice, government contracts, policies, and practices have generally excluded women, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Still, practices and existing structures continue the inequitable distribution of all contracts. Governmental and non-governmental grants and funding should benefit the communities they serve while being proportionate to the communities' demographics. This is where inclusive contracting comes in.