Healthy and Safe Communities
Safe and supportive communities build resilient families and a strong state. But our communities, workforce, and economy cannot be healthy when so many New Mexico children and families lack access to a comprehensive and high-quality system of physical and behavioral health, prevention, and wellness resources. And none of us can be healthy and safe until we do a better job of taking care of our natural environment, which includes lessening our collective carbon footprint and protecting our air, land, and water.
Featured Content
COVID-19 and New Mexico Voices for Children
Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve refocused much of our work on how COVID-19 and the recession are impacting New Mexico’s children and families, and what the state can do to ensure New Mexicans survive the crises and thrive after they’re over. This webpage includes links to fact sheets, blogs, and reports on everything from how the federal stimulus is helping New Mexico to who has been left out.
Taxing Groceries Would Make New Mexico’s Food Insecurity Problem Worse
Despite its overwhelming unpopularity, the idea of reinstating the tax on food continues to be advanced whenever the subject of raising new revenue comes up. Beyond its unpopularity, there are very important reasons taxing food would harm child well-being in New Mexico. This fact sheet looks at some of them.
How the Affordable Care Act has helped make New Mexico families healthier
The Affordable Care Act continues to come under attack from lawmakers on the right, with a suit in the U.S. Supreme Court the latest challenge. But what has the ACA actually done for New Mexico? Quite a lot! Find out more about that as well as the continued threats in this two-part blog series.
Recent Publications
New Mexico KIDS COUNT Profile: 2021 Pandemic Indicators
Fact Sheet The national 2021 National KIDS COUNT Data Book uses the most recent data available for its 16 indicators of child well-being. Since this year's report is based mostly on data from 2019, some limited pandemic-era data have been added, including some dsiaggregated by race and ethnicity. (State-level data on six pandemic-related indicators)
New Mexico KIDS COUNT Profile
Fact Sheet The national 2021 KIDS COUNT Data Book, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, assesses and ranks the 50 states on 16 indicators of child well-being, which are categorized into four domains - economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. After three years of ranking in last place, New Mexico moved up to 49th in 2021. (State-level data on indicators of child well-being)
Recent Blog Posts
New Mexico taxpayers foot the bill for abandoned oil wells
When an oil well runs dry, the oil company is supposed to clean it up and cap it to make sure it doesn’t release dangerous pollutants into our air and water. But what happens when the oil company goes bankrupt? Do New Mexico’s taxpayers end up footing the bill? Find out more in this short video.
Schools and kids should not be dependent on the oil and gas industry
The physical and economic health of our states depends on fair and responsible management of publicly owned resources -- everything from our school buildings to our state and national parks. But because of the broken federal oil and gas leasing system, our schools have received less-than-promised funding and discarded oil wells are polluting our cherished public lands.
Recent News Coverage
Pre-pandemic improvement in child well-being a glimpse at what investments can do
Incremental improvements show us both that progress is possible and also that creating the nurturing environments our kids deserve and need to thrive will require bold and sustained actions and investments.
New Senate effort to fund oil and gas well plugging could benefit New Mexico’s bottom line
“Defunct oil and gas producers have littered New Mexico with orphaned wells while taxpayers are forced to foot the bill to clean them up,” he said. “Those critical funds could be spent supporting our children and schools instead of cleaning up the mess oil and gas companies have left behind.”
Current Initiatives
The New Mexico Environmental Public Health Network became a program of NM Voices at the start of 2021. As our work both on public health and environmental health and justice had been ramping up over several years, it made sense to bring this project into the NM Voices family. As our previous environmental health focused on protecting federal lands and mitigating the harm done by oil and gas exploration and extraction, the NMEPHN work is more broadly based on protecting the state’s natural resources of air, water, and land.