Colorado has consistent annual access to eight widely used MCH data sources (vital statistics, PRAMS, Medicaid, WIC, newborn screening, and hospital discharge). Direct and indirect access to these data sources allows for descriptive and inferential analyses that provide a wealth of information to inform Title V programming, assessment, and monitoring.

SSDI

SSDI funding in Colorado is used to expand and enhance the MCH-related data system in the state in order to better collect and interpret data to comprehensively describe the health of reproductive-age women, children, and youth, including children and youth with special health care needs. The three main goals of the current SSDI project are to build and expand MCH data capacity to support Colorado’s MCH program activities and contribute to data-driven decision making, including assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation; advance the development and utilization of linked information systems between key MCH datasets in the state; and support program evaluation activities that contribute to building the evidence base for the MCH program.

These three goals will be achieved by providing data-related support for measuring progress on the current national performance measures (NPMs), state performance measures (SPMs) and evidence-based and evidence-informed measures (ESMs), selection of a new set of MCH priorities and corresponding measures and then measuring progress on the measures; creating a linkage between the state maternal mortality review and the Colorado State Board of Pharmacy’s Electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP); and enhancing the evaluation of the MCH priorities. To support these efforts, several data products are being developed to inform the upcoming needs assessment; share progress on the performance measures; and disseminate data from the MCH data sources and linkages. These products include MCH data briefs on public health issues that impact the MCH population, an MCH snapshot on the social determinants of health, a performance measure tracking table, state and county level trend analyses, and priority evaluation reports. See the full Colorado FY18- FY22 SSDI application and work plan for more details.

Other Data Updates

Child Fatality Prevention System

The Child Fatality Prevention System is a statewide, multidisciplinary, multi-agency effort to prevent child deaths. The system is comprised of 43 Local Child Fatality Prevention Review teams (8 regional teams and 35 single-county teams) and one State Review Team (46 members). Oversight for the system is housed at CDPHE. In 2018, the 43 independent local teams and the State Review Team completed all reviews of child death occurring in Colorado which were assigned to their jurisdictions and over 90% of these cases met system-wide quality assurance standards. On an annual basis, state and local teams continue to review aggregate child death data provided in order to develop policy and practice recommendations to prevent child deaths. The state review team members also participate in prevention workgroups to provide guidance for the implementation of prevention programs related to infant safe sleep, unintentional injury, child maltreatment, interpersonal violence, suicide and motor vehicle safety.

Maternal Mortality Review

See Section III.G. Technical Assistance for an update on Colorado’s Maternal Mortality Review.

Healthy Kids Colorado Survey

The Healthy Kids Colorado Survey is Colorado's most comprehensive survey on the health and well-being of middle school and high school students in Colorado. It's aligned with the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey and is conducted on a biannual basis in the fall of odd years. The purpose of the survey is to better understand youth health and which factors support youth to make healthy choices. The survey covers numerous topics such as substance use, alcohol, tobacco, mental health, suicide, physical activity, nutrition, sexual health, safety, and other risk/protective factors, in order to develop interventions and supports to keep Colorado’s youth healthy and safe. Statewide and regional survey data are compiled and disseminated after each survey. In 2017, Colorado attained state level weighted data, allowing Colorado to compare its results with nationwide Youth Risk Behavior Survey results. Colorado’s survey had responses from approximately 86,000 middle and high school students. The 2017 data was released in June 2018. The next survey will be administered beginning in the fall of 2019, with data available in 2020.

Health eMoms

Health eMoms is an unprecedented MCH surveillance system that uses a probability-based online panel design more commonly seen in market research to collect timely, flexible, and longitudinal data to understand and address the needs of Colorado’s mothers, children, and families. Health eMoms draws a monthly sample of 200 CO-resident mothers from the live birth certificate record and recruits these mothers by mail to join an online survey platform. Enrolled mothers receive six, 10-minute online surveys every six to eight months by email and text from shortly after birth up until their child’s third birthday. The first three surveys were developed in collaboration with CDPHE programs and partners, and content development is ongoing for the final three surveys. State MCH staff serve on the Health eMoms Steering Committee and Advisory Board.

Health eMoms launched in April 2018, and over the first year of data collection, 1100 (46%) Coloradan mothers who gave birth in 2018 responded to the first Health eMoms survey, which is completed between three and six months postpartum. These survey responses are currently being weighted to represent the full 2018 birth population and data will be analyzed and shared with partners during summer 2019. Health eMoms is currently sampling and enrolling mothers who have given birth in 2019. The second Health eMoms surveys, which enrolled mothers receive at 12 months postpartum, was distributed to the first group of mothers in January 2019. Eighty-two percent of enrolled mothers complete the second survey, leading CDPHE to anticipate an annual sample size of over 900 mothers. The third Health eMoms survey will launch in July 2019, and Health eMoms will roll out a new survey every six months until all six surveys are continuously in the field in January of 2021.

Child Health Survey

CDPHE, with support from the MCH program, has been collecting data on children ages 1-14 via the Colorado Child Health Survey (CHS) since 2004. In 2018, a dual-mode pilot survey (CHSe) was launched in order to address the drastic decrease in participation seen across the field of telephone surveillance and to address the cultural shift in modes of communication. The dual-mode survey allowed participants to complete the survey in the conventional phone mode, or electronically (via smartphone, tablet, or computer). To further increase participation, halfway through data collection, an electronic incentive ($20 Amazon gift card) was offered to all individuals who completed the CHSe, regardless of mode. The incentive was effective for boosting the electronic CHSe response rate, which nearly doubled from 28.7% in the pre-incentive period to 58.4% in the post-incentive period. A total of 599 individuals completed the CHSe, 345 completed electronically and 254 completed over the phone. The final overall response rate was 65.8%. With decreasing sample sizes in the CHS, Colorado plans to fund an oversample of the National Survey of Children’s Health starting in 2020. The oversample will target 1,200 completes for children ages 0-17 years from eight regions of the state. 2019 will be the last year of data collection for the Colorado CHS, and aggregated 2018-2019 results will be available in summer 2020.

Substance Misuse

For information on substance use data and what Colorado is doing to address substance misuse issues see the substance misuse priority update in section II.F.1.

CYSHCN Data Summary

MCH/CYSHCN staff aggregates data specific to the CYSHCN population. This data is summarized in the HCP Snapshot and the CYSHCN Data Brief.