Pulse Poll: Political Division Hurting Coloradans Sense of Belonging
The Colorado Health Foundation was formed in 1995 with the mission to improve the health of Coloradans. The foundation works on policies and invests in solutions to the challenges that keep Coloradans from being healthy.
One of the tools that Colorado Health Foundation uses to guide its efforts is the annual Pulse Poll. The poll covers topics that are crucial to health and wellbeing, like affordable housing, health care, crime, and mental well-being. This year's Pulse Poll was conducted by telephone and online between May 20 to June 24, 2024. The poll is a random representative sample of 2,404 adults age 18 and older living in Colorado.
"Colorado Health Foundation really wants to do a check-up…and check up on how Coloradans are feeling. This is our fifth year in a row, and so some of those priorities have really changed since 2020, our first year," said Lori Weigel, founder of New Bridge Strategy, and a member of the Pulse Poll Research team.
Coloradans rank housing affordability and the rise cost of living as their biggest concerns (89%). After those, six other challenges where identified as being very serious issues in Colorado including drug overdoses (65%), crime (59%), mental health (59%), jobs and the economy (57%), immigration (53%), and wildfires and other natural disasters (53%).
"Belonging is something that Coloradans have been telling us and focus groups and other research for a long time that they're feeling politically divided, just not as connected to their communities as they were pre-2020. So we dug in this year and really looked at that," Weigel explained.
Respondents for the most part do feel like they belong – 75% feel they belong in their neighborhood, 78% in their workplace, and 61% feel like they belong in public places in their community. By far most respondents said that it's their political beliefs that make them feel a lack of belonging. 40% identified political beliefs as making them feel like they don't belong, that's compared with 19% who said age, 16% race, 14% culture or background, 14% physical appearance, and 13% religion.
"Even the Surgeon General has looked at belong, sense of loneliness, as something that can effect health, so it's not just housing, it's all kind of different things that can effect health," Weigel said.
A year ago, the poll saw a huge spike in concern about mental health. This year 59% of respondents said they've personally experienced mental health strain.
"Many of those… 40% of those who've experienced that strain are not seeking out mental health care. So, we're seeing a real gap in terms of accessibility of mental health care for those experiencing strain," Weigel said.
Concerns about illegal immigration increased about 20% in the last year (34% in 2023 to 53% in 2024.
LINK: View More Results from the Pulse Poll
Colorado Health Foundation is releasing the Pulse Poll results in three batches. The first came in July and was called "Economic Concerns and Their Impact on Our Financial, Mental, and Physical Well-Being." This briefing is called "Beyond the Numbers: Understanding Coloradans' Top Concerns and How They Connect to Our Sense of Belonging." The third release will come on September 3rd; and it's called "Deep Dive on Responses from Hispanic and Latino People in Colorado."