CALPHO Newsletter: March 16, 2020

*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*

--  E-News   March 16, 2020  --  Top News                                      Contract, SOW, and Grant Requirement Barriers & COVID-19 Response CALPHO is raising an increasingly urgent issue with state and other funders around LPHAs missing deadlines and requirements in non-COVID-19 contracts, SOWs, and grants. Most of these funding mechanisms are reimbursement-based do not include emergency response provisions or releases. This is becoming a critical situation for most LPHAs in terms of paying staff and procurement. CDPHE is proactively assessing all of its agreements with LPHAs, but we will also be elevating this issue with the governor's office and other state agencies, especially HCPF and OBH. Please email us with your examples of programs that fall under this category and any additional information that will help us advocate on this issue. What CALPHO Staff Are Doing to Support Your Response Efforts CALPHO is now part of the state’s incident command structure (ICS), with staff serving in a supplemental liaison role. We are covering daily CDPHE staff and stakeholder briefings and providing notes and other critical information back to CALPHO directors. We are also listening to your urgent concerns and raising them with state leadership so that you can do your jobs. Please provide your mobile number on this form. We will only share it with state response leadership and will only use it if absolutely necessary.  Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems Fee Cap Repeal Signed into Law HB20-1094 repealed the current $1000 cap on fees LPHAs can charge to cover permitting and inspection costs for onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS). For many LPHAs, this cap was well below the actual cost of permitting and inspecting each system. Many thanks to the finance and environmental health folks who helped determine the actual direct and indirect costs of this program, which provided justification for repealing the cap!  Upcoming Events  Click HERE for full event calendar of events, many of which will likely be cancelled 2020 Culture of Data April 10 Parker, CO Save the date CPHA’s 2020 Culture of Data conference, themed "Health in All Data: Redefining Approaches to Health Equity." --REGISTER--> 2020 Assoc. of Public Health Nurses Annual April 20-23 Denver, CO Save the date for APHN’s Annual. Moving From Data to Action: Evidence-Based 21st Century Public Health Nursing. --REGISTER--> 2020 Shared Risk and Protective Factors May 27-28 Keystone, CO The Shared Risk and Protective Factors Conference attracts adults and young people from across Colorado actively engaged in upstream or primary prevention efforts at the state and local level. --LEARN MORE--> Click HERE for full event calendar  Health Equity                                                            CALPHO Members Stress the Equity & Funding Angles in COVID-19 News Articles Predictably, public health practitioners are very much in the news these days. CALPHO members and staff are taking these opportunities to go well beyond the basic hand-washing messaging. In local, statewide, and national outlets, they are raising-up the systemic equity and chronic underfunding issues that this outbreak will exacerbate. Below are a couple great examples:   Health agencies’ funding cuts challenge coronavirus response. March 8 in The Washington Post. Featuring Karen Koenemann, John Auerbach, and other officials from across the country. Colorado wants to ensure coronavirus won’t affect low-income, minority communities disproportionately. March 7 in the Colorado Sun. Featuring Mark Wallace, Tracy Anselmo, Bill Burman, Glen Mays, and other Colorado partners.  Public Health Works                                                      Trailhead Investigating Burnout in Public Health "Burnout" can be summarized as sustained stress that impairs one’s ability to meet the daily demands of one’s work and life. This stress can come from being overworked and hyper stimulated, being underworked and under-utilized, or a combination of professional and personal factors. Over time, there is evidence that burnout can have long term health implications and can even impact the development of a professional field. The team at Trailhead is investigating strategies to intervene in and prevent burnout among public health professionals. If you've experienced burnout, past or present, and are willing to participate in a confidential interview for this project, please complete this brief survey by March 31.  News & Current Events                                            School Entry Immunization Bill Passes Colorado Senate, (would be) On to House SB20-163, which would standardize the exemption process for nonmedical exemptions from school entry immunization requirements, passed the Senate on February 28 and has been assigned to the House Health and Insurance Committee. Many thanks to those of you who advised and testified, especially TCHD Medical Epidemiologist Bernadette Albanese, who helped committee members understand the high cost of dealing with an outbreak of measles. With the official pause of Colorado's legislative session, the timing and direction of this bill is unclear, but we will keep you up to date. Bill to Ease Economic Burden of COVID-19 Response Passes U.S. House Speaker Pelosi introduced the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” on March 11. It includes multiple provisions around coverage of testing, food security, and paid sick leave. Learn more in this summary from ASTHO. It’s chances in the Senate and with Trump are unclear. Elected leaders are listening to public health right now, so we encourage you to contact your federal representatives to express your support. Some highlights:   Provides an additional $500 million for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Grants $5 million to the Department of Labor to administer emergency paid sick leave. Releases an additional $1 billion in FY2020 emergency grants to states to process and pay unemployment insurance benefits. Helping the Public Make Sense of COVID-19 Mortality Rate Reporting You have probably seen the wide fluctuations in what mortality rate the media reports for COVID-19, and the near complete lack of explanation of how public health experts arrive at those numbers. Check out this article (pdf) in the New York Times for some great messaging examples that you can use to help explain why such a wide range of rates are being reported. Here’s a succinct excerpt if you don’t have time to check out the article:  “The problem with just dividing the total number of deaths and total number of cases is that it doesn’t account for unreported cases or the delay from illness to death. The delay is crucial: If 100 people arrive at hospital with Covid-19 on a given day, and all are currently still alive, it obviously doesn’t mean that the fatality rate is 0 percent. We need to wait until we know what happens to them eventually. Any deaths will be people who got sick two to three weeks ago, so it’s not simply deaths at the moment divided by cases at the moment. Plus some cases might be missed: If you have two deaths from two cases, as happened in Iran last month, that most likely means you’ve missed a bunch of cases.”  Highlights from our Partners                                     Vision 2020 Launches Fair Tax Colorado to Support Initiative #271 Deciding against attempting a full TABOR repeal, Vision 2020 officially launched its campaign to support Initiative #271, titled “Policy Changes Pertaining to State Income Taxes.” The initiative changes Colorado’s inequitable flat tax to a more progressive model, so that people making less than $250,000 per year will pay a lower rate than under the current structure. The changes should raise about $2 billion, half of which will go to education, leaving the rest for high priority investments. Having this extra $1 billion on the table will significantly raise our chances of funding public health core services, and a reduced tax burden for Colorado’s working families will help ease their housing and food cost burdens. Signature gathering is ramping up now and we need signatures from every county, so if you or anyone in your community would like to volunteer, please sign up on the Fair Tax Colorado website.  CDPHE Releases Action Plan for Diabetes Prevention and Management Programs After many months of stakeholder engagement, drafting, and revision, the state released a comprehensive action plan for the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and the Diabetes Self-Management, Education, and Support (DSMES). The plan includes goals and key action steps for increasing awareness, expanding availability, and increasing insurance coverage of these evidence-based programs. Four workgroups for each of the plan’s priority areas will drive these efforts. Click here if you are interested in joining one of these groups, but be sure to review the action plan first.  CDPHE Announces Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund Opportunity Colorado Senate Bill 19-227 created the Opiate Antagonist- naloxone -Bulk Purchase Fund. It allows eligible entities to purchase opiate antagonists, such as naloxone or Narcan at low or no cost.  Available funding will cover 100% of the cost until funding is exhausted or until June 30, 2020, whichever comes first. Eligible entities may order naloxone in a variety of delivery methods and dosages. Naloxone purchased through the Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund cannot be resold. How to get started? All applicants are required to have a current standing order. If you have a current standing order  → Apply here  If you DO NOT have a current standing order→ Request one here With standing order in place; Apply here Upcoming and Recorded Webinars of Interest:  National Academies & DeBeaumont PHRASES Webinar.– Wednesday March 11. Recording will be available here. In this webinar, attendees got a sneak peak of some of the insights and recommendations coming out of the long-expected PHRASES  Behavioral Health Task Force (BHTF) Webinar for CCI Tuesday, March 10. Recording available here.  Provided a comprehensive overview of BHTF structure and function. Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America Multiple webinars November 2019 through April 2020. Access recordings and register here.  This webinar series will present arts in public health program examples that address five critical public health issues - collective trauma, racism, social isolation and exclusion, mental health, and chronic disease - as well as new resources for cross-sector collaboration and program building. Opportunities USDA Issues RFP in Three Food-Related Areas: Regional Food Systems Partnership Program  supports partnerships that connect public and private resources to plan and develop local or regional food systems. Effort is focused on building and strengthening local or regional food economy viability and resilience by alleviating unnecessary administrative and technical barriers for participating partners. Farmers Market Promotion Program  Funds projects that develop, coordinate and expand direct producer-to-consumer markets to help increase access to and availability of locally and regionally produced agricultural products by developing, coordinating, expanding, and providing outreach, training, and technical assistance to domestic farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture programs, agritourism activities, online sales or other direct producer-to-consumer (including direct producer-to-retail, direct producer-to-restaurant and direct producer-to-institutional marketing) market opportunities. A 25% match is required. Local Food Promotion Program Funds projects that develop, coordinate and expand local and regional food business enterprises that engage as intermediaries in indirect producer to consumer marketing to help increase access to and availability of locally and regionally produced agricultural products.  CDC Funding Opportunity for Partnership-Based Asthma Interventions This cooperative agreement funding is intended to promote evidence-based asthma strategies and interventions through partnerships and collaborations by using health education and communication strategies. Recipients will develop partnerships and collaborations using health education and communication strategies that will result in measurable impacts. Applications due April 30. Learn more and apply here.  The Colorado Health Foundation Open Funding (June 2020) USDA Rural Economic Development Grants and Loans (ongoing) Thank you for reading. If you have any comments or ideas for future CALPHO e-newsletters, please email us at info@calpho.org.  The purpose of this e-newsletter is to provide news updates, events and informational resources on hot topics in local public health and CALPHO. Any staff person of a CALPHO member agency is welcome to join our email list to receive this e-newsletter. If you have a colleague interested in receiving this e-newsletter, please forward this message to them. Copyright © Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials 2020, All rights reserved.   Our mailing address is: 1385 S. Colorado Blvd., Bldg. A, Suite 622 Denver, Colorado 80222

This email was sent to *|EMAIL|* why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences *|LIST:ADDRESSLINE|* *|REWARDS|*