Metro Denver Partnership for Health Honored for Innovation in Public Health

Public Health Collaborative Is One of Eight Selected as 2021 'Gold Innovative Practice Awardee'

DENVER – The Metro Denver Partnership for Health (MDPH) has been honored with the 2021 Gold Innovative Practice Award by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The award celebrates local public health departments for developing innovative programs to meet the needs of their community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The designation as a Gold Innovative Practice marks the highest level of program innovation and reflects the collaboration, adaptability, and program resilience of MDPH. MDPH was one of eight programs nationwide to receive NACCHO’s Gold Innovative Practice Award.

“Because the public health agencies that comprise the Metro Denver Partnership for Health were already working regionally on projects to benefit the health of Coloradans, we had a working structure in place when the pandemic hit,” said John M. Douglas, Jr., MD, Executive Director of Tri-County Health Department and co-chair of MDPH. “Before the end of March 2020, we had already begun to coordinate working groups to address how we could prepare and respond to our communities’ public health needs once stay-at-home orders were lifted.”

MDPH is led by the six local public health agencies — Boulder County Public Health, Broomfield Department of Public Health and Environment, Denver Department of Public Health & Environment, Denver Public Health, Jefferson County Public Health, and Tri-County Health Department — serving the seven-county Denver metro area. The Colorado Health Institute has worked with MDPH since 2014 as a convener, facilitator, and strategic advisor. MDPH work affects more than 3 million Coloradans (60% of the state’s population) living in this region.

“NACCHO’s Gold Innovative Practice Award recognizes all the work we have done collectively to respond to the pandemic and prepare for life in a post-COVID world — from convening teams to address COVID-19 containment, testing prioritization, and expansion of immunization delivery — to developing interactive maps showing vaccination rates and hospitalization data,” said Jason Vahling, Director of Broomfield Department of Public Health and Environment and MDPH co-chair.

MDPH also ensured equity was at the center of the COVID-19 response, building and implementing priority population plans and partnering with local organizations to build trust with the community. MDPH will be recognized June 30 at NACCHO 360, this year’s virtual annual conference, during the Innovative Practice Winners – Quick Hits session.

Innovative Practices are exciting approaches and strategies for addressing local public health issues that were developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were creatively adapted to meet the circumstances of the pandemic. More about work the metro Denver public health agencies accomplished together to earn this award is available on the MDPH website.

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Contact for MDPH public health departments:

Contact for the Colorado Health Institute: Joe Hanel, Communications Director | hanelj@coloradohealthinstitute.org | 720.382.7093