Improving Colorado's Public Health System through Collaboration: Building a Coalition of Public Health Organizations

The Public Health Alliance of Colorado is a collaborative of ten public health organizations joining together to share resources, administrative support, and communications. The mission of the Alliance is to strengthen public health in Colorado by building capacity within the participating organizations as well as connecting its members. The core strategy is to work together to address infrastructure needs of the member organizations while providing a forum to develop a larger vision of improving the public health system through consensus building approaches. In a very short period of time, the Alliance has established itself as a force in the Colorado public health arena because members now understand the work of other member organizations, their unique perspectives on how they can work together and the power of strength in numbers. In this oral presentation, members of the Alliance organization will discuss the structure, the planning processes, staffing/governance, and the agreed to values of the coalition. Mapping out early successes, challenges and the coordinated response of the Alliance; participants will be able to identify how the public health community has been able to explore its role in shaping the future of Colorado's public health system. Participants will compare their own state systems and begin to formulate whether this model can be applied especially if there are disenfranchised groups seeking influence and ability on how to build a coordinated response to public health improvement.