Blueprint for a Healthier Future: Denver’s 2017 Youth Health Assessment

Jalyn Ingalls

February 20, 2018
Children’s Health
Community Health

When Denver health officials decided to launch a first-ever youth health assessment, they turned to some residents particularly well suited for the job: the city’s youth.

Denver recruited a group of nine young people between the ages of 13 and 25 (from more than 100 applicants) to help design the research study and participate in the process. City leaders asked the team to identify voices of young people across the city and make sure they were heard. They gave them a unique platform to discuss important issues impacting their health.

The 2017 Denver Youth Health Assessment (YHA) is a 22-page report that highlights successes and challenges when it comes to the health of young people in Denver, creating a blueprint toward a healthier future.

This team was pivotal to the success of the YHA. The Youth Leadership Team personally handed out and collected 447 surveys, hosted listening sessions and interviews, and helped to analyze the data.

Esmeralda Gutierrez-Rivera, a senior at North High School, was selected as one of the team members. Esmeralda is headed to the University of Colorado to pursue a degree in engineering with a goal of working as a pediatric nurse. 

Esmeralda has many insights about the report, so in true CHI fashion we wanted to provide you three takeaways from our conversation with her:

  1. READ THE REPORT.
  2. Denver youth are eager to share their stories and want those stories to be heard. 
  3. Students appreciated that adults were interested in their opinions and treated them as equals.

Threats and Actions

The assessment identified mental health issues, substance use, challenges related to healthy living, safety, access to health care, trauma, and loss of community identity as the seven key threats faced by Denver youth. But the goal of the report is not to just report the threats. The report also illuminates opportunities for action to help address these threats.

For example, the report says that 11 percent of high school students regularly carry a weapon to school. A suggested action step for community partners is to help young people develop strategies to for dealing with conflict without violence.

The YHA was designed to provide information to align efforts among partner organizations as they work to support youth success and was supported by Denver Public Health and Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment.

To share the assessment with community partners, the youth leaders discussed their experiences during an interview-style launch event. Among other things, they said they felt empowered to share their experiences with adults who were willing to listen and showed an interest in their well-being.

"I Am Not Alone in My Experiences."

After attending the launch, I decided I wanted to share a youth leader’s story, experience and perspective. Here’s my discussion with Esmeralda.

Esmeralda’s work on the assessment taught her about the field of public health and exposed her to the rigorous research process for collecting data. The project, she said, pushed her to step far outside her comfort zone to get the work done.

Esmeralda feels like the data will lead to changes and improvements for youth health.

On a personal level, Esmeralda said her work connected her with young people from different communities who are experiencing a lot of the same things that she is and that have concerns similar to her own. “You see what’s on the surface, but not what’s going on below the surface,” she said. “After working on the assessment, it was nice to hear other’s stories and know that I am not alone in my experiences.”

As a policy analyst, I was curious about the health policy issues that Denver youth are concerned about. Mental health resources are a big one. In Esmeralda’s experience, many students keep their feelings bottled up, and aren’t always comfortable or confident in sharing their experiences with counselors or other adults. In fact, only 45 percent of high school students reported that they would talk to an adult when they felt sad.

Esmeralda told me that even with counselors available time is a barrier to accessing help because of competing priorities like scholarship applications and homework.

Denver youth also have concerns about the changing health care landscape, according to the report. They report being worried how immigration issues and socioeconomic status may affect health outcomes. Fifteen percent of Denver youth aged 13 to 25 are uninsured, according to the Colorado Health Access Survey. This is nearly twice the state average for this age group, which is eight percent.

Esmeralda said students would love to talk with legislators about the issues they are facing and would be excited to share their stories and concerns with others as well.

Looking forward, Esmeralda is thinking about the bigger picture. She wants adults, including Colorado’s health leaders, to continue to listen to youth and be open to their concerns and ideas.

CHI Responds

At CHI, we’re listening to Esmeralda. I asked my colleagues to read the report and tell me about a takeaway that they found interesting. Here are three of their responses:

Emily Johnson, Associate Director of Economic Analysis:

Two-thirds of students aren’t getting enough sleep. I had no idea the problem was this bad! As a society, we recognize the importance of a good night’s sleep . . . but if this feels unattainable for the vast majority of young people, it seems like we need to rethink things at a deeper level.

Alex Caldwell, Associate Director of Program Development and Analysis:

CHI recently completed a statewide needs assessment of substance abuse primary prevention efforts. Many of the needs we identified also emerged in the YHA. For example, youth said substance abuse is a sign of underlying issues — like mental health needs. So strategies to address the problem should focus simultaneously on both mental wellness and behavioral issues like substance use. And youth pointed to the need for approaches that support both kids and their families to talk openly about substance use and to reduce “modeling” of parental substance use in the home. It’s validating to see those same substance use-specific needs emerge from the YHA.

Allie Morgan, Associate Director for Legislative Services:

As someone who spends a lot of time following the legislature and various spending proposals, this makes me more aware of all the worthy youth programs in Colorado (existing and potential) that deserve funding, and it reminds me of the importance of making mental health, substance use, primary care and counseling services available to all young people — regardless of what neighborhood they call home or how much money their families make. The issues discussed by youth in the report don’t discriminate.

Finally, we hope that you also take Esmeralda’s advice and read the report. She and her peers put forth an incredible effort to bring us this information. Now, the ball is in our court. 

Find Jalyn Ingalls on Twitter: @CHI_JIngalls

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