How we died in 2023

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Greetings, Temp readers, and happy Juneteenth on this unseasonably, blissfully cool Wednesday (across the eastern half of the state, at least).

The heat wave that is baking New England and other parts of the Eastern Seaboard today is a reminder that climate change will find you, no matter where you live. And that’s going to have wide-ranging economic implications. As one headline this week put it, “The climate is the economy.”

So what’s that going to mean for Colorado, specifically? On July 9, our very own Michael Booth will be moderating a free, virtual panel on how climate change is shaking the insurance industry and what lawmakers and regulators intend to do about it.

And if you’re interested in stimulating panel discussions among thoughtful experts moderated by witty journalists, then be sure to register for Tuesday’s panel on how Coloradans are working to keep people with severe mental illness from falling through the cracks. The discussion will be led by The Sun’s Tatiana Flowers, and will also be free and virtual.

You can learn more and register for both panels on our events page.

All right, we packed this sucker full of news this week, so let’s get to it.

TEMP CHECK

HEALTH

These were the most common causes of death in Colorado in 2023

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Cancer reclaimed the top spot as Colorado’s No.1 killer last year, according to finalized numbers released this month by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

In 2023, 8,411 Coloradans died from what are known in vital statistics records as “malignant neoplasms.” Heart disease, the second-leading cause, claimed 8,071 lives.

Those two causes far exceed any other cause of death in Colorado. Cancer has been No. 1 for most recent years, but heart disease held the top spot in 2021 and 2022.

Here’s the full top 10:

1. Cancer: 8,411 deaths
2. Heart disease: 8,071
3. Accidents: 4,150
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 2,407
5. Cerebrovascular diseases, such as stroke: 2,211
6. Alzheimer’s disease: 1,824
7. Suicide: 1,290
8. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 1,210
9. Diabetes mellitus: 1,102
10. Other diseases of the respiratory system: 746

For the first time since it appeared in Colorado, COVID-19 didn’t crack the top 10 causes of death last year, though it was close. With 626 deaths in 2023, COVID was the 12th-leading cause of death. (In 2021, it was the third-leading cause.)

That reflects the waning severity of the pandemic. For comparison, influenza and pneumonia combined last year killed 371 people, ranking 18th, so COVID is still very much a threat, especially to older populations.

The causes and categories in this list follow the methodology of the National Center for Health Statistics, though some of the causes are a bit of a mashup. Accidents, for instance, encompasses everything from car crashes to falls to unintentional drug overdoses. Lumping them together like that can obscure some of the underlying trends.

Accidental deaths declined last year, but drug overdose deaths were up — to 1,865, of which 1,097 involved fentanyl. Motor vehicle accidents (785 deaths) and falls (1,064 deaths) were down.

Other notable causes of death: Suicides (1,290 deaths) remained almost exactly the same as in 2022, while homicides (366) dropped by nearly 50.

Overall, 44,862 Coloradans died last year. (The figure includes people who lived here but died elsewhere and not people who died here but lived elsewhere.) That’s roughly 2,000 fewer deaths than in 2022, and it’s nearly 3,500 fewer deaths than in 2021, Colorado’s deadliest year on record.

Relative to population size, Colorado’s death rate fell to something closer to pre-pandemic levels. The age-adjusted death rate was 681.7 deaths per every 100,000 population in 2023. The three years before that had seen age-adjusted death rates in the 700s. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the age-adjusted rate was 635.9.

You can find all this data and much more in an easy-to-use dashboard on CDPHE’s Colorado Health Information Dataset page.

PRESCRIPTIONS

Is bird flu booming in Colorado?

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The number of outbreaks of avian influenza among Colorado dairy herds has reached double digits, and the pace of new outbreaks being identified is accelerating.

State and federal agriculture officials have confirmed 12 outbreaks among dairy herds in Colorado. The two most recent were confirmed Tuesday, and eight of the 12 outbreaks were confirmed in June.

AnneMarie Harper, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said state health officials have monitored or are currently monitoring more than 100 people for possible exposure to bird flu. Harper said “fewer than five” of those people have been tested for avian influenza after experiencing flu-like symptoms. None of those tests came back positive.

The new outbreaks come amid increasing alarm and criticism over the county’s inability to contain the spread of this latest strain of H5N1 bird flu.

The virus has been confirmed to have infected only four people in the United States — including three who contracted the virus following contact with infected cows — and there has been no documented instance of person-to-person transmission. But worry is growing that the virus could mutate into something much more capable of spreading to and among humans the longer it moves unchecked across the animal kingdom. That could lead to another deadly global pandemic.

CDPHE is working to provide personal protective equipment to help shield dairy workers across the state from exposure. But participation in the program so far is low.

Harper said the state is providing PPE to all dairies with outbreaks identified so far. CDPHE also has a program where dairies can order PPE, such as goggles, face shields, masks and gloves, from the state for free. As of last week, eight dairies had taken advantage of the program.

That makes roughly 20 dairies receiving protective equipment for their workers from the state. Colorado has more than 100 dairies total.

MORE HEALTH NEWS

• A state board deemed two more prescription drugs unaffordable. The Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Board added two more drugs to its hall of shame this month. After lengthy meetings, the board deemed Stelara and Cosentyx unaffordable. Both drugs treat plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and both had seen a more than 100% increase in their wholesale cost since they were introduced. By designating the drugs unaffordable, the board can now consider whether to set a price cap on what patients and insurers have to pay for the drugs in Colorado. But the future of the board’s work is unclear as a federal lawsuit by the maker of another drug the board has deemed unaffordable, Enbrel, is still pending in the early stages of litigation.
  — Colorado PDAB
• A new Colorado commission will assess the harms of slavery and racism. But only if it can raise $30,000 more. Colorado lawmakers this year passed a bill creating the Black Coloradan Racial Equity Commission, which will study the ongoing legacy of slavery and racism in economic mobility, housing, education, health care, the criminal justice system and other areas. But, fearing that putting a price tag on the bill that hits the state budget would sink the effort, supporters instead turned to donations. As Tatiana Flowers reports, proponents are now $30k shy of their $785,000 goal.
  — The Colorado Sun
• An experiment doled out money to homeless people in Denver, no strings attached. Here’s what happened. Speaking of how money makes the world go ’round, what if a solution to homelessness is to provide people who are unhoused with a small, basic income? According to a new report of just such an experiment in Denver, the money led to twice as many people in stable housing. Jennifer Brown has the details.
  — The Colorado Sun
• Why a Denver-area community health center is merging with a mental health care provider. Clinica Family Health and Mental Health Partners, both of which are nonprofit providers serving disproportionately low-income patients in the northwestern Denver metro area, are getting hitched. The reason? It partly has to do with the movement to better integrate physical and mental health care. And it partly has to do with needing a bigger boat to take on the larger waves rocking the health care industry.
  — The Colorado Sun

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CLIMATE

Why you won’t vote on a Front Range passenger rail tax this year

Colorado has seen big momentum supporting new public transit investment this year, even as public support for RTD erodes with every 10 mph light rail trip. The legislature created a new $3 fee on car rentals to raise nearly $60 million a year for transit projects. Late in 2023, Colorado’s proposed Front Range Passenger Rail got $500,000 in federal study money that also placed the concept at the front of the line for future federal construction money.

But Front Range Rail officials learned this spring just how extensive their studies must be before qualifying for big federal dollars. They not only need a proposed service plan, but also a detailed environmental impact study. A federal infusion and lots of other funding sources will be needed for the multi-billion dollar passenger project from Denver to Longmont, Boulder and eventually Fort Collins, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

Front Range officials had talked of a sales tax vote in the 13-county district as early as this fall to start raising actual construction money. Then the study demands piled up, RTD’s awful publicity may have complicated a pro-train campaign this fall, and other sales tax and school bond issues started to crowd the ballots.

So we asked Front Range Passenger Rail spokesperson Nancy Burke for an update:

The Colorado Sun: Has the FRPR board formally decided to not seek a tax election in 2024?

Nancy Burke: The board decided at the May 31 board meeting to continue planning and service modeling for the launch of intercity passenger rail service from Fort Collins to Pueblo, to include completion of the formal service development plan, before seeking voter approval of sales tax funding in the district’s 13 counties in 2026.

Sun: What were the main considerations in deciding not to seek a vote this year?

Burke: The board wanted to ensure they had time to work toward the service development plan completion, which will include additional service and financial modeling … and that takes more time. They also wanted to look at state funding opportunities that were recently created through the legislature and look at opportunities to leverage resources and create a plan to work together with partners along the northwest rail from Denver to Boulder and up to Fort Collins.

There are opportunities to work together that may provide economies of scale and the board wanted to ensure when they come to voters for a sales tax ask they have done all they can to be fiscal stewards and offer a thorough well-studied plan to ensure the voters know exactly what they are getting.

Sun: How long will the NEPA environmental impact statement take?

Burke: Good question! We are working to expedite the NEPA study and working with partners to see how this can be accomplished.

See more of the Front Range Passenger Rail responses later this week at ColoradoSun.com.

MORE CLIMATE NEWS

• Can Moffat County get a just transition after Craig closure? In a place as beautiful and empty as Moffat County, a stable large employer paying good salaries is hard to come by. Closure of the Craig coal power plant and two accompanying coal mines will be an enormous blow to the area economy even as it’s a boon for the environment. Local and state officials calculate Tri-State Generation should provide up to $118 million in transition benefits for the employees and the community, Mark Jaffe reports.
• Group will sue Larimer County to block Thornton water pipeline. It was pretty clear Larimer County’s approval of a construction permit for a Thornton water pipeline across part of the northern Colorado county would face additional legal challenges. And now the primary opponent of the project, Save the Poudre, has announced its intent to file suit in state district court, saying the commissioners ignore the policy benefits and public approval of running the water down the Poudre River instead of a pipeline, Michael Booth reports. 
• High Cost of Colorado: What’s happened to your water bills? As part of our ongoing High Cost series, examining inflation’s impact on everyday lives, it’s time to take a second look at that monthly water bill: For some Coloradans, the cost of turning on the tap has been rising for decades, and experts say it is primed to keep climbing, Shannon Mullane reports. Water utility providers in Colorado are adding new services, adapting to increasingly stringent environmental regulations and facing looming repairs for aging pipelines and pumps. These providers don’t make a profit from their services, but they have had to hand down more costs to customers.
• How 40,000 acre feet of Colorado River went missing. When U.S. water officials were scrambling to balance a drought-stricken series of buckets on the Colorado River system that includes Blue Mesa, Flaming Gorge and Lake Powell reservoirs, 40,000 acre-feet got lost somewhere along the way, Jerd Smith reports. It’s in effect a rounding error in the massive system, but still, somebody could use that liquid.

CHART OF THE WEEK

Are the kids maybe, actually, sort of all right?

Last week, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released the results of the latest Healthy Kids Colorado Survey. The HKCS is the gold standard for tracking trends in mental and behavioral health among the state’s youth. And the big takeaways were largely positive.

In its news release, CDPHE highlighted improvements in teen mental health. More high schoolers say their stress level feels manageable most days. Far fewer report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, 26% compared with 40% in the pandemic-era 2021 survey. Fewer teens also reported contemplating or attempting suicide in the prior year.

But there was another trend that stood out. In the first state in the country to allow legal recreational cannabis sales to adults, youth marijuana use in Colorado is going down.

The chart above tells one part of that story: Fewer than 13% of Colorado’s high schoolers last year reported using marijuana at least once in the previous 30 days. That is the lowest percentage the survey has found since at least 2013 — the year before recreational pot shops opened in Colorado.

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The percentage of high schoolers who reported ever using marijuana — 26.3% — is 10 percentage points below 2013 levels. The percent who say marijuana is easy to get is 14 percentage points below 2013’s number.

And perceptions of disapproval of marijuana use are going up. More than 70% of Colorado high school students said they think it is wrong for someone of their same age to use cannabis — 10 percentage points higher than in 2013. More than 89% say they think their parents or guardians would disapprove of them using marijuana.

Advocates for cannabis legalization were quick to credit the policy’s impact for the shift.

“Colorado continues to be proof that regulating cannabis works,” Chuck Smith, the board president for Colorado Leads, a cannabis industry group, said in a statement.

Opponents of legalization would point out that not all schools participate in the HKCS. The 2023 survey saw participation from 344 schools and more than 120,000 students, but there were notable gaps in some areas of the state where large numbers of districts or students opted out of the survey. So while the survey is big, it may not be as comprehensive as possible.

But the trends around cannabis follow those for other risky behaviors.

Fewer teens are binge drinking in Colorado. Vaping is down. And fewer high schoolers are having sex — about 45% of 18 year olds in high school report having ever had sex, the first time that datapoint has come in below 50% since at least 2013.

The decline in cannabis use among high schoolers in Colorado also fits with a similar decline nationally. In the most recent federal data available, 15.8% of high schoolers nationally reported using marijuana at least once in the previous 30 days. Those numbers are from 2021, though, so they are not a direct comparison to Colorado’s newest numbers.

Amazingly, these apparent trends don’t seem to have changed teens’ own attitudes about what they think is happening.

When asked whether they believe half or more of the students in their grade level used marijuana, 51% of high schoolers said they did. That’s a significant increase over the 2021 survey.

So is this evidence that a lot of teens are lying in the survey about their marijuana use? Or is it evidence of a different truth, as timeless as it is catchy: It’s hip to be square.

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If you clicked that last link, then you got a bit of Huey Lewis. And if you read all the way to the bottom, then you got The News. Sounds like a pretty good combo.

Thanks for riding with us this week. We always enjoy the journey and hope you do, too.

— John & Michael

Corrections & Clarifications

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.