This session includes two presentations about how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many areas of life and the impacts that are emerging in surveillance and survey data.
- Presentation 1: Health Inequities and the Impact of COVID-19 Among Colorado’s Young People – Results from the 2020 HKCS Supplement (Whitney Israel - Colorado School of Public Health Anschutz Medical Campus; Emily Fine - Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment)
- Presentation 2: Utilizing a State Epidemiology Workgroup to Generate a Behavioral Health COVID Impacts Report (Stacey McClellan, Julia Ricotta, Charlotte Gray; OMNI Institute)
---------------------------
Full presentation descriptions:Health Inequities and the Impact of COVID-19 Among Colorado’s Young People – Results from the 2020 HKCS SupplementThe purpose of this session is to share youth health outcomes and behaviors from the 2020 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (HKCS) Supplement, specifically identifying health disparities among young people, contextualizing the disparities using an equity lens, and highlighting the collaborative effort of the Colorado School of Public Health (CSPH), Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and local school communities.
In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CSPH School & Youth Survey team administered the 2020 HKCS Supplement to measure adolescent health outcomes across Colorado. The survey was a shortened version of the standard HKCS, which is aligned with the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey and administered in odd-numbered years. The last full HKCS was administered in the fall of 2019 to over 100,000 middle and high school students.
The 2020 HKCS Supplement was administered from October through December with the purpose of collecting critical data to evaluate the effects of COVID-19 and other relevant and timely health indicators such as experiences with racism & discrimination, ACEs, and resilience. In addition to these new measures, the instrument retained alignment with core measures in the 2019 HKCS for comparative analysis (e.g., mental health, substance use, school connectedness).
The 2020 HKCS Supplement was offered to all participating schools of the 2019 HKCS (n=503). This convenience sampling resulted in approximately 73 schools enrolling in the survey. We hope that this study will provide all participants with takeaways about the current state of health for young people in Colorado, with an emphasis on framing the data to understand systemic inequities experienced by Colorado youth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Utilizing a State Epidemiology Workgroup to Generate a Behavioral Health COVID Impacts ReportCOVID-19 has affected community members' health and wellness beyond the coronavirus virus itself, and health data sources are slowly beginning to show these effects. This presentation will focus on the development of a state level COVID Impact report utilizing non-traditional, multidisciplinary data sources to illustrate the impact of COVID-19. It will also cover the process of using a statewide epidemiological outcome workgroup (SEOW) to access and understand this cross-sector data.
The COVID Impact report includes preliminary trends in data around behavioral health, substance use and overdoses, the criminal justice system, and adverse childhood experiences since the onset of COVID in March 2020. Each topic covers data changes throughout the pandemic, how these changes compare to previous years of data, and how the state is addressing these impacts through program adaptations and innovative initiatives or programs. In addition to the behavioral health data, our team gathered other valuable resources to support the report, such as state legislation changes and the timeline of COVID-related restrictions, to create a holistic picture of each topic area.
The presentation will also address some challenges our team faced when collecting data. As we gathered data, many traditional data or commonly used sources were not available for our focus areas. Our team had to look beyond traditional sources to converge on some indicators of interest. For example, in the absence of current local data on substance use rates, we looked at alcohol sales from the Alcoholic Beverage Control authority, alcohol-related crashes (State Patrol), hospitalizations, and death certificate data (Department of Health) to paint a picture of substance use during COVID-19. The lag in availability of traditional public health data sources has forced our team to take more creative approaches that have shifted our perspective as researchers and opened up new reporting opportunities.