Quarterly Newsletter
Fall 2020
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The Colorado SEOW increases awareness, understanding, and access to data and data publications that address substance use, abuse and related health issues in Colorado. The Colorado SEOW is a multi-disciplinary working group that promotes the collection, analysis, and clear communication of data to support and inform substance use, prevention, intervention, treatment, recovery, enforcement, and broader policy.
The Colorado SEOW is associated with the Colorado Office of the Attorney General as the data committee for the Substance Abuse Trend and Response Task Force (SATF). This unique relationship allows the SEOW to provide key leaders and legislators with information on substance use trends and to help inform the allocation of resources.
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Upcoming Meetings |
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The SEOW meets every other month on the
third Thursday from 9-11 a.m. Remote connection available. Future dates and presenters include the following:
- November 19, 2020 - Impact of COVID-19 on data sets regarding Substance Use
For more information on meeting locations and remote access, contact Aracely Navarro.
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Ways To Get Involved |
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Interested in contributing your perspective and expertise to further impact substance use efforts? - Attend an upcoming monthly meeting in person or virtually;
- Present data or data products at a monthly meeting;
- Share our newsletter with others in your network; and,
- Become an SEOW member.
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What's Happening |
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The Colorado SEOW has a new website (www.coloradoseow.org) containing information on the SEOW goals, workgroups, publications, and meeting information. The SEOW will meet every other month for a total of six meetings per year. Due to COVID-19, the SEOW will conduct meetings virtually until further notice. Three of the SEOW meetings will feature data presentations on new data sources or products. At the other three meetings, each member will share data on a specific topic.
For the November meeting we will discuss how COVID-19 has impacted substance use data. We are also going to discuss how data has been used and analyzed to investigate the impacts of COVID-19. The SEOW hopes providing members opportunities to share their data will support better products, increase member engagement, and encourage learning and networking. If you are interested in presenting or have an idea for a data topic, please contact us. Steering Committee (SC) Update: The SC creates agendas, discusses strategic direction, and reviews progress on the SEOW’s goals.
The SC is in the process of evaluating the work of the SEOW and will soon send out surveys to our members to help with our evaluation. Be on the lookout for the surveys!
The SC will also be adding QR codes to all of our publications so
that you may give feedback on the products and let us know if they were useful to you and what we can do to improve. Alcohol Policy Workgroup Update:This workgroup was formed to research evidence-based policies to reduce excessive drinking in Colorado. Julia Stullken, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiology (CSTE) fellow has joined the workgroup through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. She will serve as the fellow for the next two years and has begun her work helping us with alcohol policy issues. This workgroup will meet quarterly, for more information regarding this workgroup, please contact Kacy Crawford, alcohol
epidemiologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.Data Brief Workgroup Update: This workgroup was recently formed to develop short, topical briefs on issues and events that are timely and relevant to policy makers and substance use professionals in Colorado. The workgroup aims to produce three topical briefs each year.
The workgroup recently published two topical briefs including the Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders Brief and the Alcohol Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic Brief. To access these most recent briefs and previous briefs, click here.
Epi Profile Workgroup Update:In 2018 the Colorado SEOW collaborated with The Evaluation Center and Zeto Creative to produce the SEOW’s first state epidemiological substance use profiles. The SEOW focused on alcohol, marijuana, and opioids. The profiles were short, highly visual, and easily interpretable to a wide audience.
The SEOW plans to continue publishing this product biennially. Currently the SEOW is working on the 2020 profiles and plans to have them published by December of 2020.
You can find the previous profiles, here.
If you would like to join this group and work on the profiles please contact Haley Sammen.
Training Workgroup Update: This workgroup was formed to address data access and usage needs identified by local public health departments. The group developed a data literacy manual to build the capacity of local public health professionals to find, request, and assess the quality of secondary data. The contents
of the manual are being transformed into online learning modules through support from the Rocky Mountain Public Health Training Center.
The online modules and accompanying PDFs will be completed and accessible by the end of the year.
If you have any question or would like to join this workgroup contact Aracely Navarro.Prescription Drug Workgroup
Update:
The prescription drug workgroup is a new group formed to address prescription drug use and data needs. Tyler Payne is the chair of this group and is recruiting local people for a co-chair position, if you are interested in the co-chair position please contact Tyler Payne. The workgroup will also be presenting at the Consortium Virtual Annual Meeting, where they will present data and discuss their recent integration into the SEOW. For details on registering for the conference please see below.
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Additional Resources, Events and News!
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Attend the Consortium Virtual Annual Meeting!
Please join us for the Consortium's 8th Annual Meeting as we celebrate the successes over the past year, honor leaders who work tirelessly to support prescription drug abuse prevention and discuss future efforts of our work groups. Breakout sessions will highlight prescription drug and opioid-related data in Colorado, disparities and innovations in recovery support, behavioral health issues in agricultural communities, statewide harm reduction efforts, and the upcoming funding opportunity for PDMP integration.
To register for the
meeting, click here.
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The Colorado Department of Health and Environment have recently published new Healthy Kids Colorado Survey Data! The new Healthy Kids Colorado Survey Data has just been released. This data is useful to study trends such as substance use and mental health among youth.
If you are interested in exploring this data, click here.
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The State Demography office will be holding their 38th Annual State Demography Summit virtually on Wednesday, October 28!
This one-day conference offers attendees the opportunity to learn about the most current population and economic conditions and forecasts for the state and its regions. These plenary sessions will not only cover the data and information but also discuss implications for planning, policy, business, and public services. Experts will provide a recap of the 2020 Census data collection and plans for Census Differential Privacy implementation, discuss impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic, and highlight State Demography Office tools for visualizing the impact of the pandemic on Colorado counties.This year’s Summit will offered over Zoom
and is free for all participants. Click here to register for this year’s Summit.
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CDC's Report on Nonfatal Drug and Polydrug Overdoses Treated in Emergency Departments In 2017, a total of 967,615 nonfatal drug overdoses were treated in U.S. emergency departments (EDs); polydrug ED-treated overdoses increased from 2017 to 2018.
To read more, click here.
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