Prevention LIVE brings bilingual prevention info directly to New Mexico homes
Friday, April 2, 2021; Silver City, NM: Southwest New Mexico has jumped into the Digital Age and leaping alongside is the Center for Health Innovation’s (CHI) Prevention and Community Collaboration Department which launches a new weekly Facebook Live series on Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 7 p.m. via the nonprofit’s and its programs’ Facebook pages. The Spanish version broadcasts its premiere the following Wednesday, April 14 at 7 p.m.
The bilingual series, “Prevention LIVE,” connects leading experts in the field of prevention to impart how New Mexico residents can transform our state into a healthier and safer place, especially for our youth.
“We’ve brought the experts from our prevention coalitions across southern New Mexico to share their insights with families,” said John Costilla-Gonzalez about the collaborative efforts in Luna County where he aids in coordinating the Coalition Against Teens using Substances (CATS), a committee of the Luna County Health Council, a program of CHI.
“This is collaborative effort that we are providing our community to productively inform our community residents about the impact substance misuse has on our region and what we can do to decrease substance misuse by youth,” said Michelle Rincón, coordinator of the Unified Prevention Coalition (UP!) for Doña Ana County, another of CHI’s prevention programs.
Because COVID pandemic health restrictions are keeping people safely inside, CHI’s cadre of prevention programs banded together to better connect to the communities they serve and share information through resident’s mobile phone, tablets, and laptops.
“We’ve kept the Prevention LIVE segments short and to-the-point, each is about 10 to 15 minutes long,” explained Alyssa Myrick, manager of the Prevention and Community Collaborations Department at CHI. “Each episode includes ways people can create a healthier home, family and community.”
“The series shares weekly prevention information on the importance of locking up medication, how to talk with your kids about substance use, and resources for parents,” said Rincón.
Rincón coordinates the weekly Spanish version of Prevention LIVE which debuts on Wednesday, April 14 at 7 p.m. with “Almacenamiento Medicinal Responsable” hosted by UP! Coalition member Carlos Briano, Public Information Officer of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Such information is sorely needed in New Mexico, which for the third year in a row ranked 50th in the nation for child well-being, according to the “2020 Kids Count Data Book”. The measure factors statistics for economic well-being, education, health and family and community to discover how children are faring across the USA.
To keep New Mexico youth healthy, part of the effort includes reducing their access to alcohol and other substances, like opioid, a common prescription painkiller that can be found in many homes. The first Prevention LIVE by Briano will focus on how families can take measure to keep their medications from being at risk of misuse by practicing proper storage.
It is an especially important issue because youth in the southern portion of the state report improperly using prescription pain medication at higher rates than the New Mexico average, according to the 2020 Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey. Though rates of prescription pain medication misuse by youth have decreased significantly in the last decade, efforts by residents can aid to continue keeping youth from gaining access to medication that could lead to accidental poisonings or overdoses.
CHI’s Prevention Programs support community-directed collaboratives to decrease substance misuse by youth in Doña Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, and Luna Counties. These efforts include broader policy and environmental efforts like supporting school policies that promote treatment for substance misuse, educating the public on substance misuse issues, and partnering with local law enforcement to make safe, no-cost medication disposal available in all four counties.
The Hidalgo County Health Council (HCHC), CATS, UP! Coalition and the Youth Substance Abuse Coalition (YSAPC) of Grant County have collaborated to make the “Prevention LIVE” series possible. The series can be viewed on their Facebook pages, as well as the CHI Facebook page.
Tune in to “Prevention LIVE” every Thursday at 7 p.m. for the English version and the Spanish version on Wednesday’s at 7 p.m. via the CHI Facebook page at facebook.com/centerhealthinnovation or on the prevention programs’ Facebook pages:
CATS at facebook.com/LunaCounty; HCHC at facebook.com/hchealthcouncil; UP! Coalition at facebook.com/UPCoalition; YSAPC at facebook.com/YSAPC.
For more information contact Prevention LIVE coordinator Costilla-Gonzalez at (575) 597-0038 or jcostilla-gonzalez@chi-phi.org or visit: chi-phi.org/prevention-live.
