CU Anschutz Researchers Launch Data Dashboard to Track Colorado's $912 Million Opioid Settlement Spending
Key Insights
CU Anschutz's Injury and Violence Prevention Center received $313,198 over two years from the Colorado Opioid Abatement Council (search) to build a public-facing data dashboard.
The dashboard will track how Colorado's 19 regions spend more than $912 million in opioid settlement money across prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts.
Researchers aim to improve transparency and help regions make evidence-based investment decisions by presenting key data in an interpretable format.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (search) are launching a new data dashboard project designed to track the public health impact of Colorado's opioid settlement spending, which totals more than $912 million received from opioid manufacturers and distributors for their role in the opioid epidemic.
The Injury and Violence Prevention Center (IVPC) at CU Anschutz received $313,198 in funding over two years from the Colorado Opioid Abatement Council (search) (COAC) to develop the dashboard. Ashley Brooks-Russell, PhD, MPH, co-primary investigator on the project and IVPC Director, emphasized the urgency driving the initiative.
"Every day, people die from opioid and other drug overdoses in Colorado," said Brooks-Russell. "It's an ongoing and urgent crisis, and making key data points more visible, transparent, and easy to access and understand will increase the public appreciation of this issue."
Tracking Spending Across the Continuum of Care
Sixty percent of Colorado's total opioid abatement money is earmarked as a "regional share," meaning the funds go directly to 19 Colorado regions tasked with leveraging existing infrastructure and local relationships to address the opioid crisis. The IVPC dashboard will track data on how these regions deploy settlement money, covering areas across prevention, treatment, and recovery.
"We want to track the data indicators across a continuum from prevention to treatment and put it in an interpretable dashboard," Brooks-Russell said.
The goal is to empower the 19 regions to continue investing abatement money in an evidence-based manner. Brooks-Russell noted that the IVPC team will engage directly with regional stakeholders to shape the tool: "We are going to listen to the regions across the state about what data they want at their fingertips—and how they want it presented. And then the regions decide on their priorities—prevention, treatment, recovery, naloxone distribution, et cetera—in terms of the percentages of how they spend the allotted funds."
Building on Existing Public Health Data Expertise
Brooks-Russell and the IVPC team bring relevant experience to the project, having previously developed a similar dashboard for the Office of Gun Violence at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
While the Colorado Attorney General's Office currently tracks how abatement money is being spent, the IVPC dashboard will go further by assessing whether funded initiatives are producing measurable improvements in public health outcomes.
"For example, over the span of the next decade, the percentage of how much regions spend supporting people living in recovery may need to shift as organizations across the state provide treatment to more individuals," Brooks-Russell explained.
The IVPC received the grant in May 2026, and the project is funded through December 2027, at which point the dashboard is expected to be published. Brooks-Russell emphasized that ensuring the sustainability of the dashboard beyond the grant period is a key priority.
Grant Writing Assistance Program Reopens
In a related development, the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Misuse Prevention (search), housed within the CU Anschutz Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, announced a new round of its Grant Writing Assistance Program, also funded by COAC. The program connects accepted applicants with qualified grant writers at no cost to participants.
"One of the biggest barriers many community organizations face isn't a lack of ideas or commitment; it's having the capacity to pursue funding opportunities," said Jennifer Place, assistant director of the Consortium. "Through this program, we're helping remove that barrier so organizations can access the resources they need to expand prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction efforts in communities across Colorado."
According to Consortium Director Rob Valuck, PhD, RPh, the program was initially established in 2019 with funding from the Colorado General Assembly (CO SB19-228). By the time funds were exhausted in 2023, 56 organizations across 105 unique Colorado zip codes had received grants totaling $31.6 million—representing a 49:1 return on investment.
"The results from our previous grant writing assistance programs demonstrated what is possible when communities have the right support," Place said. "We're excited to launch this new round and help even more organizations secure critical funding to address the opioid crisis and support people affected by substance use disorders."
Grant writing assistance is available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum cap of $5,000 for any single grant and $8,000 per applicant over the lifetime of the COAC funding source.