Improving health and housing outcomes through a simulation and economic model: an evidence-based protocol of a group model building approach to develop an agent-based model.

Introduction: Homelessness in the United States increased every year since 2016, with a 38% increase from 2023 to 2024. Much of the increase is attributable to rising home and rent costs, economic hardship caused by the recent pandemic, and the ending of protective legislation. Notably, people who experience homelessness have an increased risk of substance use disorders, HIV infection and poorer HIV outcomes than people who are stably housed.

Implementation of a Statewide Fentanyl Possession Law and Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths.

Importance: In 2022, Colorado passed legislation making possession of small amounts of fentanyl, a high-potency synthetic opioid, a felony. Whether the Colorado law affected opioid overdose fatalities and whether those effects differed by racial and ethnic subgroups is unknown.

Objective: To estimate the association between the change in criminal penalties for fentanyl possession with opioid-related overdose deaths (OODs) in Colorado.

Youth Homelessness in Denver, Colorado: 2017-2021.

Objectives: Homelessness is a public health crisis in the United States, yet homelessness prevalence, especially among children and youth, is not well understood. In this study, we use an indirect estimation method known as multiple systems estimation to further evaluate prevalence of youth experiencing homelessness in Denver, Colorado.

Methods: We performed a multiple systems estimation ("capture-recapture") analysis to estimate annual homelessness among youth aged 14 to 17 years in the city and county of Denver, Colorado from 2017 to 2021.

Association of Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Homelessness and Crime in Denver, CO: A Spatiotemporal Analysis.

In 2022, approximately 580,000 people experienced homelessness in the United States. In response, many cities have implemented "camping ban" policies enforced by involuntary displacement of homeless encampments. Displacement has been cited as a strategy to protect public health and safety.

COVID-19 Surveillance for Local Decision Making : An Academic, School District, and Public Health Collaboration.

Objective: Data-informed decision making is valued among school districts, but challenges remain for local health departments to provide data, especially during a pandemic. We describe the rapid planning and deployment of a school-based COVID-19 surveillance system in a metropolitan US county.

Methods: In 2020, we used several data sources to construct disease- and school-based indicators for COVID-19 surveillance in Franklin County, an urban county in central Ohio.