2025 Annual Report

To Our Community,

For the Colorado Health Institute, 2025 was a year that demanded steadiness, and we were not alone in feeling it. Across the country, public health faced unprecedented challenges. Funding streams shifted. Health policy debates grew more contentious. Through it all, CHI remained what we have always been: a nonpartisan steward of the data and analysis that communities need to make informed decisions about health.

When clarity is scarce, it becomes essential. This year, we saw why CHI’s role matters. Communities turned to us for credible information they could trust. Partners relied on us to cut through complexity. Policymakers and advocates looked to us for data that could inform their work.

Our response was to do what we do best: answer critical questions, make sense of complex issues, and support others to reach actionable solutions. We fielded the 2025 Colorado Health Access Survey, giving Coloradans a platform to share their experiences with health coverage, access to care, and the factors that shape well-being. We deepened partnerships that center equity and lift communities too often overlooked. We facilitated difficult conversations and created space for collaborative problem-solving.

The work you’ll see in this report reflects CHI’s commitment to being your reliable partner. From analyzing the impacts of federal policy to advancing public health data infrastructure and workforce capacity, from supporting primary care payment reform to expanding organizations’ capacity to collect, understand, and use data, each project embodies our values of accessibility, collaboration, and integrity.

As we move through 2026, CHI’s purpose is clear. We will continue stewarding the data that communities depend on. We will maintain the transparency and accessibility that build trust. We will create spaces where people can grapple with complexity and find common ground. Because sustaining trusted systems, especially in uncertain times, is not just meaningful work, it’s essential work.

CHI is here. Please call us to talk about how we can work together to improve health for everyone.

Sara Schmitt, President and CEO

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Let’s Talk/Hablemos Colorado

Mental health affects us all, but talking about it doesn’t always come easy, especially for communities that face added barriers to care and support. CHI partnered with the Metro Denver Partnership for Health to refresh the Let’s Talk Colorado and Hablemos Colorado campaign, updating both websites with culturally relevant content, new videos, and community-tested messaging designed to resonate with Hispanic/Latino, Black, LGBTQ+, and Medicaid-eligible Coloradans.

By centering community voices in the redesign process, the revamped letstalkco.org and hablemosco.org make it easier for people across the metro Denver region to find support, start conversations, and know they’re not alone.

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Milbank Fellows Program

The Milbank Fellows Program is a 10-month leadership program that brings together senior state legislators and executive branch officials from across the country to deepen their knowledge of population health and sharpen their ability to drive policy change. CHI partnered with the Milbank Memorial Fund to develop curriculum content and design and lead the program evaluation, tracking whether fellows grow in their leadership capacity, build meaningful cross-partisan connections, and ultimately take action to improve health in their states.

CHI also provides evaluation support to the Milbank Memorial Fund’s Emerging Leaders Program. In following fellows and these emerging leaders through graduation and beyond, CHI’s evaluation helps ensure each cohort is diverse, engaged, and positioned to make a lasting impact on the policies and systems that shape community health.

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Technical Assistance and Training for Health Departments

Through a partnership with Trailhead Institute and the National Network of Public Health Institutes, CHI served as a regional technical assistance hub for public health departments receiving funding through the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG), a federal program supporting states and localities in strengthening their infrastructure, data systems, and workforce. In 2025, CHI provided hands-on support to Region 8 grantees, including Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment and the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, on topics ranging from data governance and communications to strategic planning and equity.

CHI also hosted a monthly information exchange that brought Region 8 grantees together to share knowledge and navigate complex federal reporting requirements, turning a compliance challenge into an opportunity for peer learning.

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Colorado Equity Compass Equity Data Training

The Colorado Equity Compass is a statewide tool designed to help communities understand and act on health equity data. In 2025, CHI served as the lead data partner, refreshing the Equity Data Navigator platform with updated metrics and developing a local data repository to give communities access to place-based insights on the social determinants of health.

CHI also led the Data Use Learning Collaborative, supporting eight organizations in building their capacity to understand and apply equity data, and contributed to the evaluation work that tracks the Equity Compass’ impact across Colorado.

Metro Denver Community-Clinical Linkages Network

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CHI continued to advance chronic disease prevention and management efforts as the backbone hub for the Metro Denver Community-Clinical Linkages Network. In 2025, the network grew to eight organizations, including Federally Qualified Health Centers, community-based organizations, a local public health agency, and a pharmacy, all focused on serving communities that face a disproportionate burden of chronic disease.

CHI provided training and technical assistance to build referral pathways across these organizations, improving access to evidence-based programs and community resources like the Diabetes Prevention Program. The network’s growth and early successes made a strong case for continued investment, and the Board of Health approved funding to keep expanding the network through June 2028.

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Belonging Colorado Evaluation

Belonging Colorado is a statewide initiative working to bring people together across lines of difference and make Colorado a model for welcoming, connected communities. CHI serves as the learning and evaluation partner for the initiative, developing a comprehensive evaluation plan that tracks progress across place-based grantees, leadership networks, and social entrepreneur programs launched in 2025.

Using a rigorous mixed-methods approach, CHI is helping Belonging Colorado understand not just what outcomes are being achieved, but how. Together we are building the evidence base for what works when it comes to bridging divides and fostering belonging across the state.

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ACC Phase III Stakeholder Engagement

Colorado’s Medicaid delivery system was on the cusp of a major transition, and ensuring that the communities it serves had a voice in shaping it was essential. From 2022 through the July 2025 launch of Phase III of the Accountable Care Collaborative, CHI partnered with the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to lead stakeholder engagement and communications. These sessions reached more than 5,600 stakeholders across 135 meetings and captured over 500 written comments from community members.

CHI synthesized that input into three formal reports and developed tailored communication materials for providers and members. This work helped ensure that the people most affected by Colorado’s Medicaid system were informed, heard, and prepared for what came next.

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CALPHO Data Modernization

Colorado’s local public health agencies want to keep pace with emerging technologies, but their capacity to do so looks very different depending on whether they serve a large urban county or a small rural community. CHI partnered with the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials to conduct a statewide capacity assessment that takes that full range of needs into account. The work was grounded in interviews and conversations with public health partners from across the state.

The resulting report gives every local public health agency a practical roadmap for participating in data modernization, with recommendations spanning strategy, technology, and people. No agency will be left behind as Colorado builds the infrastructure needed to meet future health challenges.