Culture of Data 2025

Firearms in Colorado are common; 45% of Coloradans report they live in a home with a firearm. The majority of firearm owners also state they own a firearm to protect their homes and families. However, access to a firearm is a risk factor for suicide lethality as 90% of all suicide attempts with a firearm are fatal, and research suggests the time between deciding to attempt suicide and then attempting suicide is often under 10 minutes. Thus, strategies to reduce access to lethal means are a promising strategy for suicide prevention. 

Since 2014, the Colorado Office of Suicide Prevention has supported the Colorado Gun Shop Project (GSP) as a strategy to promote lethal means safety in Colorado. The GSP coordinates outreach between local firearm community advocates and firearm retailers/owners to share effective safe storage strategies for Coloradans who own firearms. However, measuring outreach in the community has been a consistent challenge for GSP program evaluation efforts. This presentation provides an overview of the GSP, its implementation in the Office of Suicide Prevention, and efforts to improve data quality from GSP outreach efforts. 

In 2024, The Office of Suicide Prevention created a new data collection protocol for the GSP that emphasized timely reporting with local insights from GSP firearm community advocates. In this presentation we will present 1) lessons learned from previous iterations of the GSP implementation 2) the use of online survey tools (Qualtrics) to improve data collection from GSP  firearm community advocates and 3) how GSP automates data collection and analysis using Google Looker Studio to create reports that can inform program decisions for the Office of Suicide Prevention as well as local outreach teams, and improve reporting processes for GSP funding agencies.