Creating Communities Where We Can Stay, Return, and Belong
EPIC means Elevating Prevention in Colorado. The state created a goal for grantees to increase the number of youth in our community who never use substances. For those youth who have already experimented, the goal is to decrease their monthly use. The details of how we do that are under construction, with you.
A colleague recently shared a fictional story about children falling into a river, floating with the current, struggling to stay afloat. Concerned villagers repeatedly pulled children from the river until one day they decided to look upstream and see what might be causing this dangerous situation.
Through our Health Impact Assessment (HIA), we learned what was happening upstream:
HOUSING + STABILITY
Housing affordability and displacement are linked to chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, mental distress, and decreased life expectancy.
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
A lack of economic opportunity means people can’t afford basic necessities, resulting in mental distress, isolation, untreated illness, and in some instances despair and violence.
COMMUNITY HEALTH
Eviction and involuntary displacement negatively impact children’s physical and mental health, brain development, and school attendance.
What if prevention isn't about fixing people?
What if it's about changing the conditions around us?
It’s understandable to think of the word prevention as paternalistic, as though we are not strong enough to help ourselves so someone must save us. While a reasonable criticism, we believe prevention isn’t about fixing or saving people; it's about working alongside them to protect their community from inequitable systems. To us, prevention in EPIC means supporting Near Northeast Denver as it considers how best to fix the upstream factors harming the community. When medical doctors use the word prevention, it’s frequently in the context of biological predispositions which require attention and treatment to prevent sickness or death. In our case, we hope to build a plan with Near Northeast residents to treat systemic and environmental inequities that predispose us to physical/emotional distress and trauma.
Our work is to co-create NNE neighborhoods where you can stay, return to, and belong. Your voice creates the plan.
