CU Anschutz In The News

“I think historically there's always been a lot of mistrust and discrimination that's been faced by racial and ethnic minoritized individuals like Black patients, American Indian patients and Latino patients,” Dr. Lilia Cervantes, a program leader and associate professor in the department of medicine at CU Anschutz, said. “To reduce mistrust, to improve culturally responsive care, I think we need to diversify the health care workforce.”

Traverse Academy will serve 60 students in fourth through 12th grade in three separate wings: one for kids in mental health crises that will be heavy on therapy and light on academics, another for students with moderate needs that will balance the two, and yet another for students getting ready to transition back to their home schools. Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry will provide clinicians to work alongside the educators.

Kerry Peterson, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at the University of Colorado Anschutz College of Nursing, said the issues around suicide stem from several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic that left many teenage girls feeling isolated. “There’s also a lot of social and cultural issues taking place in society today that teen girls have to worry about,” said Peterson.

“I think the numbers provide data to confirm what we have expected to see and what we have been hearing from providers as well as supporters of people seeking abortion,” Kate Coleman-Minahan, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado College of Nursing said.

Abortion pills are only approved for use for up to ten weeks of pregnancy. Kate Coleman-Minahan, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado College of Nursing, points out that this method of terminating a pregnancy won’t always be applicable. “There are people who don't have private and safe spaces to manage medication abortion who don't feel like they have the social support to do that,” Coleman-Minahan said

The Office of Behavioral Health also consulted with Daniel Goldberg, associate professor and researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Center for Bioethics and Humanities, who specializes in structural stigma. People often experience or think about stigma in an individualized way, he said. For example, a person may feel stigmatized seeing their doctor or talk with a social services provider. But stigma, he said, is a “downstream manifestation of an upstream phenomenon.”

“If people don't like the idea of an incentive, you have to think: okay, so what are the alternatives?” said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz. “Because in the end, for many vaccines we have, if the vaccine is important, we have had to implement mandates in order to keep people vaccinated over time.”

“There's really two reasons why people get vaccines, right?” said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “They're either getting the vaccine to protect themselves or they're getting the vaccine to protect others.”