This is the question the 2009 Colorado Health Report Card seeks to answer. Now in our fourth year of reporting on the health status of Coloradans, we regret to report that our overall health grades have not improved since 2006 when the Colorado Health Foundation issued the first Report Card. Most troubling is the overall grade for Healthy Children, which dropped from an already dismal C- to an unacceptably low D+. Each of these indicators can be viewed on this site under their respective life stages – Healthy Beginnings, Healthy Children, Healthy Adolescents, Healthy Adults and Healthy Aging.

  

This year’s Report Card includes policy profiles for each life stage and discusses recent policy initiatives in Colorado and elsewhere that could positively impact the indicators. The Healthy Children Policy Overview, illustrates how policy can be used as a tool to stem the tide of childhood obesity. For example, the beverage bill (SB 09-129) illustrates how legislators are using policy to fight obesity. As of July 1, 2009 schools in Colorado are no longer permitted to sell soda pop or other sugary beverages in school vending machines or cafeterias.¹ 

Other states have taken additional steps to improve the nutritional content of food and drink sold in schools. More than two-thirds of secondary schools in California, Connecticut, Hawaii and Maine are no longer selling baked goods, high-fat salty snacks, candy, soda or fruit drinks that are not 100 percent fruit juice.² In order for our state to have healthy children, we also need to ensure that they have access to care through insurance coverage and medical homes. Colorado policymakers have taken steps recently to improve those indicators, through legislation such as the Health Care Affordability Act (HB 09-1293) and the Colorado Medical Home Initiative (SB 07-130). But much more work can be done in these areas, and we invite you to join with us as we work collectively to improve the health status of Colorado’s children.

1. National Association of State Boards of Education, “Colorado Bans the Sale of Soda in Schools”
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mortality and Morbidity Weekly, October 5, 2009. “Availability of Less Nutritious Snack Foods and Beverages in Secondary Schools—Selected States, 2002–2008”