Child & Family Health
In order to be healthy, Colorado’s kids and families need quality, affordable health insurance coverage that provides access to physical, behavioral and oral health services; thriving caregivers in safe and connected communities; access to high-quality reproductive health services including abortion care; and ample amounts of healthy food.
We know that throughout our nation’s history, policies, institutions and organizations have created systems in which the resources and opportunities for health are inequitably distributed. These inequities have a greater influence on health outcomes than either individual choices or the provision of health care. Our work includes understanding inequitable policies, working to dismantle and reduce harm from those policies, and creating new policies and systems that allow all Colorado families equitable opportunities to thrive.
Where Colorado Stands
Colorado is widely recognized as one of the healthiest states in the nation, but our systems are failing too many of our children and families.
- Thanks to important decisions made by Colorado lawmakers, along with implementation of federal health reform, Colorado has made great strides in ensuring that our kids have access to health insurance. However, progress has stalled in recent years and substantial disparities remain in health insurance coverage and access to quality health care services among Colorado kids and families.
- In line with national trends, Colorado’s maternal mortality rate is rising dramatically. Structural, institutional and interpersonal racism leads to worse outcomes for perinatal people and infants of color.
- Bipartisan investments in family planning services in Colorado led to a more than 50% decline in the rate of births and abortions among young Colorado women aged 15-19 during the past decade, but our progress may be in jeopardy as more individuals travel to Colorado to access critically important abortion services, straining our reproductive health system.
- We have expanded access to healthy school foods for tens of thousands of Colorado students, but food security remains a challenge for too many Colorado families.
What the Children’s Campaign is Doing
With the support of the Children’s Campaign, meaningful policy has been passed at both the federal and state level over the last few years to lay the foundation for getting kids the care they need, when and where they need it. Our priority now is to build upon these policies and make sure they are implemented appropriately. All Colorado children should have health coverage and the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong. The Children’s Campaign is focused on the following key policy priorities:
Health Insurance Coverage for Kids and Families
Insurance coverage improves financial security, health status, mental health and access to health care. It also decreases infant, child and adult mortality rates.
Thriving Caregivers
Children need healthy, thriving caregivers who are able to support them. This means ensuring parents have access to the behavioral health services and connected communities they need to thrive.
Reproductive Health
Together with reproductive rights and justice organizations in Colorado, the Children’s Campaign works to maintain and expand access to reproductive health care services – including high-quality family planning services and the abortion care that people need to ensure autonomy over their bodies and chart their own futures.
Access to Healthy Food
When kids fail to get enough food – or enough of the right kinds of food – their physical and cognitive development suffers. We work to ensure that children have access to healthy food wherever they go – at home, in child care settings, and at school.
