This report outlines the features and implementation of Pueblo County’s (Colorado) robust, near real-time, and regular data collection and sharing infrastructure for public safety, public health, and behavioral health partners.
Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment (PDPHE) is one of six local community agencies funded by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA’s) Partnership for Data-Driven Responses Demonstration Project. The foundation for PDPHE’s Partnership grant was laid by the Substance Use Response Ecosystem (SURE). Established in 2017, this community collaboration among health, safety, emergency services, human services, and other community partners is the stakeholder workgroup for the PDPHE grant. The goal of the grant project is to facilitate collaborative analysis of local and state public health and safety data that support targeted implementation of public health, public safety, and behavioral health strategies that prevent and reduce drug overdose deaths. Grantees are required to form organizational structures that support cross-sector collaboration, including an executive leadership group, a data-focused group, and a stakeholder group that guides data analysis and prioritizes responses. This report presents the project partners’ development of a problem statement and research questions that guided the data-sharing activity. It also describes the software selection process, which included four software demonstrations, followed by debriefs with partners to discuss the pros and cons of each system. PDPHE is in the process of developing an external dashboard. This report provides online access to a sample of dashboards Pueblo County used to inform its design. Data shared on the dashboard will be used as a point for accessing subsets of the data to illuminate what is occurring throughout the community. This report provides online access to the dashboard.