In January 2025, the City of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado, launched a new tobacco retail licensing ordinance aimed at restricting sales of nicotine products to minors. The ordinance requires retailers to pay for not only a Colorado State Tobacco License, but also an annual local license, and it caps the total number of licenses in the city and county at 14. The ordinance gives enforcement power to Lake County Public Health.
The provisions of the ordinance are the product of hard work by community leaders, in partnership with the Policy + System Change Network (PSCN) at the Colorado School of Public Health, said its interim program director, Eric Brodell, MPH.
“The City and County took a stand against the proliferation of tobacco products being sold in their community,” Brodell said.
The PSCN team assisted with support that is grounded in real-world experience and proven to help communities in most of the 64 counties in Colorado.
Assistance with translating public policy ideas into practice
The PSCN, which is part of ColoradoSPH’s Center for Public Health Practice, offers local leaders who are interested in driving policy changes a variety of support, including technical and legal assistance, learning opportunities, connections to like-minded partners, and targeted training and education.
The team draws on 40 years of collective experience in offering those services, Brodell said, but he emphasized that crafting and getting approval for a new policy is not an end in itself. The work occurs in different stages, depending on the locale, and always requires leaders to engage with their communities.
“Community engagement is policy work,” Brodell said. “Conducting demographic research, talking with people in your community, understanding your community conditions – it’s all policy work. People have an idea that writing an ordinance or a bill or a law is going to make everything better by itself. It’s not, and we are keenly aware that implementation and enforcement is of the utmost importance. Passing a policy is only a piece of the puzzle. Supporting community programs and education are also big pieces of that puzzle.”
For example, he noted that during the work on the Leadville/Lake County tobacco ordinance, community leaders and the PSCN addressed the issue of enforcement, which could strain the City of Leadville’s small police department. The PSCN team worked with the Lake County Public Health Department to figure out how they could handle enforcement, just as they do to ensure compliance with food safety requirements.
"If we weren’t flexible and malleable enough to meet community needs, this ordinance would have failed," Brodell said. "We want to help communities create accountable and sustainable systems through policy change."
Collaboration with communities to effect change
The PSCN collaborates with Colorado cities and counties – many of them in rural areas – with the considerable help of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), Brodell said. The PSCN works with communities that receive grant funding through CDPHE’s State Tobacco Education Prevention Partnership (STEPP). In addition, counties with the CDPHE-sponsored Community Organizing for Prevention (COFP) and Communities That Care programs have free and immediate access to services from PSCN, Brodell said.
He noted that the PSCN team not only fields requests for assistance, but also works proactively to contact public health and other community leaders about relevant issues. The goal: develop and strengthen policies and protective factors that address issues like substance use and violence prevention.
The team offers services through community calls, work groups, peer learning, tailored one-on-one technical assistance, and “opportunities to build understanding before a policy process even starts,” Brodell said. “It’s a long process, but it’s proven and it works.”
In addition, communities can also reach out to the PSCN for assistance on a fee-for-service basis for help with analyzing policy gaps and solutions, Brodell said. For example, the team can provide a gap analysis to help leaders understand the current state of a policy or issue and advise on what is needed to implement a change.
Building a foundation for policy change & trust in public health
Ultimately, the PSCN works to “demystify” the policy process, Brodell said. In that work, the team follows the lead of the Center for Public Health Practice, which works broadly to translate ideas for improving health and wellness into real-world solutions.
“When I was in school for my master’s degree, if I could have engaged with a Center for Public Health Practice to do my capstone project, I’d have absolutely loved to have been involved with it,” he said. “It’s innovative work, and I’m really excited as the interim program director for our unit to highlight the importance of practice in public health.”
The PSCN will continue to strive to help individuals and groups in communities around Colorado build “healthy, safe, and vibrant communities,” Brodell said.
“The more people hear about how good our outreach and customer service are, and how methodical we are about tailoring solutions for communities, the more they are going to receive health and public policy solutions with open arms,” he concluded.
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