The Healthy Beverage Partnership, a collaborative comprising health departments and community partners, is making strides in Colorado by promoting beverages with lower sugar content to children and families. Their efforts are funded by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Cancer, Cardiovascular, and Pulmonary Disease (CCPD) Grant program, which aims to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases and address health inequities. The partnership is the only collaboration in the state focused on reducing access to sugary drinks, such as sweet teas, soda, sports drinks, juice, and more.
The partnership has worked with local public health agencies and community partners for more than 10 years to educate the public about the harms of sugary drinks and their long-term health impacts, including cavities, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and more. As part of this work, the partnership focuses on addressing health disparities. The beverage industry's targeted marketing tactics and widespread availability of sugary drinks in convenience stores and retail outlets have disproportionately affected communities of color and those with lower incomes, exacerbating health inequities.
The Partnership first received a three-year grant from the Cancer, Cardiovascular, and Pulmonary Disease (CCPD) Grant program in 2015, which it used to assess 319 food and beverage environments in the Denver Metro area; develop a regional messaging campaign with 15 million impressions in Colorado; craft a healthy food and beverage policy toolkit; and support the adoption of city-wide healthy vending policies across Metro Denver as well as an ordinance in Lafayette that banned the advertising of sugary drinks on kids' menus.
“Some of the partnership's biggest successes have been changing restaurant menus so that children have the option of milk or water first,” says Mandy Feeks, public health program coordinator with the Public Health Institute at Denver Health. “We want to make it easier for people to choose water instead of a sugary drink.”
The next round of funding from CCPD in 2018-2023 allowed the partnership to convene local coalitions within communities and implement more city-level policies for healthy beverages in Metro Denver. In addition, city councils in both Longmont and Golden passed healthy drinks in kids’ meal policies.
In 2023, the partnership received a third CCPD grant for an initiative called Healthy Beverage Choices for All, which supports municipal-level sugary drink reduction policies across Colorado.
The funding began in July 2023 and allows the Partnership to engage communities in parts of rural and semi-urban Colorado; convene local coalitions to lead efforts to pass municipal policies; and complete assessments to identify interest and support for sugary drink reduction policies.
The third wave of funding is already seeing results. The City of Denver recently adopted an ordinance to ban sugary drinks from being listed in bundled kids’ meal menus.
“We have been able to sustain this work and keep it moving and are starting to see these policies pass,” says Andrea Pascual, chronic disease prevention program manager with the Public Health Institute at Denver Health. “Folks are starting to understand that this is a needed change.”