CHI, as New Mexico Public Health Institute, was formed to address health disparities that stem from the deep historical and current inequities that frame the lives of New Mexico residents. CHI envisions that in New Mexico, “health equity is achieved [and] social and health issues continue to be prioritized through evidence, policy, civic engagement, and social […]
Publications
Toward A High Performing Rural Health Care System: Key Issues and Recommendations From Rural Health Care Innovators
Charlie Alfero, our founder, was among the Rural Health Care System Innovators to serve on a Rural Health Policy Research Institute’s (RUPRI) Health Panel to discuss strategies and models for rural health care system innovation. Alfero was one of the convened state and community leaders with firsthand knowledge of diverse, innovative health financing and service […]
Comprehensive, Collaborative Health Systems Planning and Implementation in New Mexico: Two Case Studies
How and why do some New Mexico community collaborative efforts to build a healthy community work better than others? To help answer this question we completed an in-depth study of two New Mexico counties, Santa Fe and Doña Ana. From this study, we developed and tested a framework with two those counties that are engaging […]
The Health Commons and Care of New Mexico’s Uninsured
A seamless system of social, behavioral, and medical services for the uninsured was created to address the social determinants of disease, reduce health disparities, and foster local economic development in 2 inner-city neighborhoods and 2 rural counties in New Mexico. We helped urban and rural communities that had large uninsured, minority populations create Health Commons […]
Health Extension in New Mexico: An Academic Health Center and the Social Determinants of Disease
The Agricultural Cooperative Extension Service model offers academic health centers methodologies for community engagement that can address the social determinants of disease. The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center developed Health Extension Rural Offices (HEROs) as a vehicle for its model of health extension. Health extension agents are located in rural communities across the […]
Community Health Workers and Medicaid Managed Care in New Mexico
We describe the impact of community health workers (CHWs) providing community-based support services to enrollees who are high consumers of health resources in a Medicaid managed care system. We conducted a retrospective study on a sample of 448 enrollees who were assigned to field-based CHWs in 11 of New Mexico’s 33 counties. The CHWs provided […]
Advancing the Transition to a High Performance Rural Health System
Despite decades of policy efforts to stabilize rural health systems through a range of policies and funding programs, accelerating rural hospital closures combined with rapid changes in private and public payment strategies have created widespread concern that these solutions are inadequate for addressing current rural health challenges. This paper presents strategies and options that rural […]
The Role of Community Health Centers in Assessing the Social Determinants of Health for Planning and Policy: The Example of Frontier New Mexico
This article examines the experience of a frontier-based community health center when it utilized the Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments (THRIVE) for assessing social determinants of health with a local health consortium. Community members (N = 357) rated safety, jobs, housing, and education among the top health issues. Community leaders integrated these […]
Medicaid Payment and Delivery System Reform: Challenges and Opportunities for Rural Health Systems
Compared to their urban counterparts, rural populations tend to be older, poorer, and sicker and have less access to employer-sponsored insurance plans. Consequently, a higher proportion of rural people are potentially eligible for Medicaid. Indeed, as of 2014, 22% of rural residents were enrolled in Medicaid while 20% were enrolled in Medicare, signifying that Medicaid […]
Health Education Centers promote rural practice in primary care
A new project report from Rural and Remote Health Journal , by JD Taylor and SE Goletz, found that health education centers (AHEC) promote interest in rural practice in medical students. CHI hosts two AHEC which serve southern New Mexico, part of our efforts to promote health education in rural communities. Find out how “significantly positive […]