Culture of Data 2021

This is a 20-minute, audio-only session. Listen in to learn some content while you take a break from the computer screen and take a walk around the block.

Choosing Priority Populations for Tobacco Control in Colorado, 2021
Francesca Macaluso, Katherine James, Arnold Levinson - University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado School of Public Health

The identification of priority populations for public health intervention follows varied processes across public health, healthcare services, and research domains. Making the process explicit and consistent in principle will allow for better collaboration among partners seeking to engage in reducing health disparities, including public health professionals and community organizations. Since 2004, the Community Epidemiology Program & Evaluation Group (CEPEG) at the University of Colorado | Anschutz Medical Campus has periodically identified priority populations for tobacco use interventions, using data from The Attitudes and Behaviors Survey (TABS) on Health, a population-based survey of Colorado adults. Criteria for priority-setting have included social justice, elevated burden rates, greatest number of smokers, and workplace settings. In the past, each criterion was applied alone. CEPEG currently proposes that these and additional criteria should be applied jointly in a sequence, starting with two threshold criteria: social equity, and disparately high prevalence of a burden. Other criteria include population size, accessibility, shared sense of community, and potential partners. Priority designations inevitably lie along a size-burden continuum, where decision-makers must balance resources between more burdened but smaller population groups and less burdened but larger population groups. This presentation addresses the development of a consistent approach to priority population designation and identifies opportunities for information and resource sharing among various sectors of the public health workforce.