Invest in Community Health and Advocacy

Join us to advance whole child health through a comprehensive approach that extends beyond our hospital walls where children live, learn and grow.

Invest in Community Health and Advocacy

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Eliminating health disparities

Our Community Health and Advocacy (CH&A) experts are helping shape a national model for whole child health. By co-creating care solutions with community partners, we integrate expert clinical care with non-clinical support services that address the social drivers of health impacting kids’ well-being.

To create lasting change, we advocate for child-centered policies that strengthen safety nets, expand access to essential resources and reduce long-standing health inequities. Through this combination of medical expertise, community collaboration, policy leadership and data-driven insights, we are tackling the complex needs of children and families both inside and outside the hospital.

Our Moment to Make a Difference

Addressing community health promotes a foundation for a child’s lifelong health, academic success and social stability. Early intervention has been proven to prevent future health complications, reduce long-term healthcare costs and promote better outcomes by ensuring all children have the resources they need to thrive. For many Colorado children, though, they face serious health disparities due to their social drivers of health.

In 2022, 1 in every 5 children in the U.S. dealt with food insecurity.

Colorado’s Child Food Insecurity Rate was 14.2%, with higher rates in urban counties and lower rates in suburban counties.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children.

At Children’s Colorado, asthma and other respiratory-related conditions remain a top reason for hospitalization.

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among Colorado children and youth under age 18.

In 2023, 5.5% of Colorado high school students reported attempting suicide at least once in the past year.

Tooth decay is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases.

In Colorado, 18.2% of children ages 0 to 18 had no dental visit in the past year, and 5.9% of parents rated their child’s dental health as fair or poor.

Factors influencing child health

Medical care in a clinical setting accounts for only 20% of what influences kids’ overall health and health outcomes. The majority of children’s health is impacted by social drivers of health:

Neighborhood and built environments, such as housing, transportation, playgrounds and air quality

Social and community context and culture, such as civic engagement, discrimination and inequities

Education, such as level of schooling, literacy, language fluency and early childhood education

Economic factors, such as employment, income and access to foods

A case study for how social determinants influence child health

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, black children are two to three times as likely to have asthma compared to white children, which leads to more trips to the emergency room and days out of school than their peers. To truly address asthma disparities, we must recognize the complex relationship between social drivers of health including economic stability and education and systems that shape community conditions such as geographic isolation and environmental injustice. Geographic isolation intensifies things like insecure housing and lack of access to health care. Asthma cannot be effectively treated in the hospital’s outpatient clinics or emergency department alone. It needs to be addressed by tackling systemic inequities and through prevention and education in homes, schools and everywhere that children live, learn and play.

Children’s Colorado is a steward of health and wellness for kids

We have a moral imperative to ensure fair and just opportunities for kids and their families to lead healthy lives and experience healthy futures.  Eliminating health disparities also makes good economic sense. The high costs of care for vulnerable populations is well documented and includes issues such as greater frequency of expensive emergency department visits that could be avoided through preventive care, along with higher incidences of chronic diseases and the costly management that goes along with these conditions.

In partnership with our communities, we are proud to lead the effort to design and test innovative solutions for some of the most pressing pediatric health issues. As the largest nonprofit pediatric healthcare provider in the Rocky Mountain region that spans a 1,000-mile radius, Children’s Colorado is uniquely positioned to coordinate community efforts and bring together organizations that serve kids to provide better health for everyone.

Breaking down barriers to whole child health

Because so much of a child’s health is impacted by social drivers of health, Children’s Colorado has started several programs aimed at addressing these factors, including our Community Health Navigators Program and Resource Connect Program.

Community health navigators work in pediatric practices with diverse populations to build culturally responsive care and trusting relationships to help families secure resources that address basic needs, such as food and nutrition, Medicaid benefits, transportation, housing and mental health care.

Resource Connect is a program that connects patients and families who need access to resources with community-based services to meet non-medical health needs, such as legal assistance for a range of issues, benefits enrollment into programs such as Medicaid, utility assistance, heating system repairs and food for women and young children through WIC (Women, Infants and Children).

At Children’s Colorado, we believe food is as important as medicine. Children who live in households that experience a periodic lack of food are likely to be sick more often, recover from illness more slowly and be hospitalized more frequently.

In response, Children’s Colorado has developed a multi-pronged  Food as Medicine initiative that aims to reduce barriers to accessing food and demonstrate that a proactive approach to addressing families’ potential food shortages ultimately improves health and saves money. This strategy includes our Healthy Roots Food Clinic and our school-based programs where families can access nutritious food if they are facing shortages, along with a community garden that supplies the food clinic.

In partnership with the Center for Advancing Professional Excellence, this initiative equips providers with culturally responsive training to meet diverse patient needs. With 200 team members trained, Children’s Colorado is fostering a more inclusive healthcare environment. Building on the success of this initiative, we are launching a broader focused health initiative to further improve health access and outcomes.

The Power of Your Support

Investing in community health and early preventive care for children leads to significant long-term benefits, both in health outcomes and economic savings. Research shows that early interventions can prevent chronic diseases and reduce future healthcare costs.

By addressing these needs now, Children’s Colorado can foster healthier communities, improve patient outcomes and build a more equitable foundation for lifelong health.

Your gift helps us address systemic challenges and accelerate healthy equity transformation.

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