Tagged With "prevention"

Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...

There’s usually not much good news to be found when you look at Colorado’s record on mental health and substance abuse. By nearly every metric — suicide rate , the prevalence of mental health issues , death from drug overdoses — the state is one of the worst in the nation. But a team of behavioral health professionals and advocates hopes to bring good news soon. On July 1, the new Behavioral Health Task Force kicked off a year-long effort to find a way to “revolutionize” Colorado’s...