Equity in Policy Institute

Author: epi_admin

  • Mobilizing Culture, Sovereignty, And Community For Tribal Health In All Policies

    Mobilizing Culture, Sovereignty, And Community For Tribal Health In All Policies

    Federal and state suppression of cultural sovereignty in American Indian (AI) tribes’ self-rule of their people’s health and well-being has produced siloed, fragmented, and foreign policies and practices. 

    For permissions to view this Digital Story, please contact:  Norman J. Cooeyates, MCRP, Triable Relations Liaison, Center for Native American Health, ncooeyate@salud.unm.edu

    Mobilizing Culture Min
  • Advancing Disability Rights through Housing Equity

    Advancing Disability Rights through Housing Equity

    “Disability” has been used as a justification for the exclusion of individuals from full and equal rights and privileges of U.S. society since the mid-19th century.

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  • Asian American Racial Equity

    Asian American Racial Equity

    Asian American Racial Equity & Healing – Policy Dialogues, January 13, 2022

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  • Latinx Youth suicide prevention

    Latinx Youth suicide prevention

    While the majority of New Mexico youth (54.3%) are Hispanic/Latinx (more than 300,000 people), there is NO statewide strategic plan that tackles suicide prevention for Latinx youth. 

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  • Grandparents Raising Children

    Grandparents Raising Children

    Nationwide, more than 2.6 million people are raising grandkids. That number is rising rapidly as more parents are jailed, are forced into treatment centers or die from drug and opioid overdoses (AARP 2017).

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  • Closing the Digital Divide

    Closing the Digital Divide

    Key Message

    The lack of access to broad-band is a structural determinant of health that impacts education, access to health care, employment, financial well-being and social inclusion in the New Mexico-Mexico border region, especially in the colonias communities.

    • *Colonias along the United States–Mexico border region suffer from some of the greatest digital divides in the country, as well as some of the gravest health inequities.
    • About one-half of Doña Ana County’s population resides in the 37 colonias and the surrounding rural areas.
    • Limited broadband infrastructure prevents the region from using telehealth widely to improve health outcomes.
    • Within Doña Ana County, colonias residents continue to be less likely to have access to affordable broadband. Rural families and communities struggle the most, especially in Berino, Chamberino, La Mesa, Mesilla Park, Mesquite, San Miguel, Vado, and outer edges of Chaparral. Here, there are very limited options for internet service and the options that are available are usually priced too high to be affordable.
    • About 66,200 (21%) of students in public schools live in a household without internet access:
      • In Dona Ana County 54% of households in the Hatch Valley Public School District have no internet subscriptions.
      • In the Gadsden, Independent School district up to 41% of households have no internet subscriptions, and within some census tracts it is as high as 56%.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has created additional barriers from the digital divide, leaving generations of families and entire areas of southern New Mexico in a chronic state of economic, social and educational hardship.

    • Community members have expressed concerns about needs and challenges they are encountering with internet access now that essential services such as schools, social service agencies, and clinics have limited access.
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