Vail Health is seeking input on behavioral health needs, access and gaps

Third biennial behavioral health survey is open to the public through Feb. 16

News | Feb 12, 2024

Ali Longwell

**These final rate increases, announced by Colorado’s Division of Insurance on Thursday, Oct. 17, represent lower increases than in previous years.**
*Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive*

To better understand the accessibility, usage, perception and gaps in its behavioral health services, Vail Health Behavioral Health has partnered with Building Hope Summit County to survey Eagle and Summit counties.

“We want to make sure that we’ve got the ability to get access quickly and efficiently to anyone who’s looking for it,” said Dana Erpelding, senior operations director at Vail Health. “We can’t do that unless we get community feedback and community input … and we want to make sure that everybody’s voice is heard.”

This is the third iteration of the biennial behavioral health survey, created in 2020 by The Katz Amsterdam Foundation. The foundation was started in 2018 by former Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz and his wife, Elana Amsterdam, to support various communities and causes.

According to Erpelding, the goal of the initial survey was to start collecting baseline data across the different mountain resort communities where Vail Resorts operates and see if there were trends in behavioral health.

“It was a way of getting baseline data around what the behavioral health issues, gaps and needs are — that might be similar across those communities — so that we can build relationships and compare lessons learned around identifying not only the challenges but also opportunities for improvement,” she said.

In addition to providing a bigger and broader picture of needs, issues and gaps, the previous two surveys have also helped build specific programming within Eagle County.

The survey is broken into four key categories:

Community life, which includes how engaged and connected people feel to their community
Social connectivity, which includes questions about isolation, loneliness, social support and safety
Mental health, which includes questions about attitudes toward mental health, accessibility of resources, and more
Substance use, which includes questions about community perceptions around substance use, personal use of substances and the impact of these issues

“Within those four buckets, looking at the data in the past, we’ve looked to see, primarily with Eagle Valley Behavioral Health, how aware people are of the resources that exist? Are people still struggling to get access to those resources? And are there specific demographics in the community that might be in need of services or struggling to access services more so than others?” Erpelding said.

Erpelding said that previous surveys identified a trend in Eagle County where monolingual Spanish speakers felt a higher sense of isolation as well as a lack of support and knowledge about how to access resources.

Vail Health Behavioral Health has been working with local nonprofits to increase peer support and Spanish-language marketing efforts around resource availability. This has included the allocation of funding and support.

Erpelding added that the data from the 2020 and 2022 surveys were shared with Vail Health’s nonprofit and community partners that work in the behavioral health field. This includes the school district, law enforcement as well as Your Hope Center, Bright Future Foundation, My Future Pathways and more.

“We share that data so that we can work together to improve existing programs or build new programs to help address gaps that we’re identifying,” she said.

The questions and format of the survey have intentionally stayed the same.

“We want to be able to compare the data and know we’re collecting the data in the same way from our same geographic area so that we can compare that data from 2020 to now, 2024, to keep that consistent,” Erpelding said.

This year, however, Erpelding noted that Vail Health Behavioral Health is “putting a stronger emphasis around substance use and ways that we can help individuals.”

The survey helps identify trends and needs to continue building and growing its programs and services in this area.

“We’re looking for resources on how either they’re in recovery from alcohol use or looking to reduce their alcohol use. I know that’s going to be a bigger area of focus for us,” she added.

The 2024 survey is still funded through The Katz Amsterdam Foundation and over the years has grown to include more mountain communities. Increasing the number of communities that participate allows Vail Health to compare and collaborate with other mountain communities across the country.

Join the 17,000 readers who get the news from us daily.

While Summit County has participated since 2020, Vail Health Behavioral Health is collaborating closely this year with Building Hope, a behavioral health nonprofit in Summit, on the survey and results.

In addition to becoming the designated Community Mental Health Center for Eagle County, since July 1, 2023, Vail Health Behavioral Health has held this designation for Summit County as well.

The survey is open now through Friday, Feb. 16, in both English and Spanish to individuals 18 or older. The responses are anonymous and all questions are optional.

The Eagle County survey is available at VailHealthBH.org/CommunitySurvey2024. The Summit County survey is available at VailHealthBH.org/SummitCountyCO2024.