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
Health-in-All-Policies for New Mexico
Your state of health is dependent on many variables – including where you live, how much you earn, and even how far you went in school. These are called “social determinants of health” and they not only impact your health but they also impact your ability to choose a healthy lifestyle. Everyone’s health could be improved if lawmakers took these determinants of health into account when creating public policies. This report offers an overview of the determinants of health as well as the policies that can improve health for all.
Ending Childhood Food Insecurity in New Mexico
New Mexico’s childhood food insecurity rate has long been at or near the highest in the nation. The pandemic and resulting recession only made it worse. This report looks at why food insecurity is such a problem in New Mexico, how it impacts children and families, and what the state can do about it. (State- and county-level data on food and economic insecurity)
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.
Recent Publications
Revenue We Can Rely On
Policy Brief In order to build a strong economy, New Mexico must be able to reliably fund the services - like education, health care, and public safety - that our families and businesses rely on. Our over-reliance on revenue from the boom-or-bust oil industry makes that impossible. Here are the top 5 reasons we must change.
Ensuring a Fair Share: Modernizing Federal Oil and Gas Revenue Policies
Policy Brief New Mexico’s school children are not getting their fair share of oil and gas revenues. That’s because the rental and royalty rates for drilling on federal lands are beyond outdated; some have not been revised in nearly a century. (State-level data on oil and gas production)
Recent Blog Posts
Putting New Mexico’s Babies First: How Paid Family and Medical Leave Gives Babies a Healthy Start
In homes across New Mexico, parents and caregivers have long been forced to make an impossible choice – one made even harder in the last 18 months by COVID-19. Do I care for my baby or sick family member, or do I leave them to work and earn the pay we need to survive? This choice has dire implications for babies, families, public health, and the economy.
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.
Recent News Coverage
Brewery owner touts benefits of paid sick leave: lower turnover, happier workers
New Mexico has fewer workers protected by paid sick leave than any other, with about 50% of workers here working without it, according to New Mexico Voices for Children.
Leger Fernández introduces bill to help communities’ economic transitions away from fossil fuels
“This bill is about ensuring a better future for kids,” James Jimenez said. “For years, New Mexico has relied on oil and gas to fund our children’s education programming. But as we battle climate change and protect our land and public health, it’s vital that states like New Mexico are able to diversify their economies.”
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.