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 As this new millennium begins, I am pleased to present The State of Health in New Mexico. The report on our state’s health status for the year 2000 has been prepared by the New Mexico Department of Health (DOH) and collaborators. In this report, you will find the details on the major health issues confronting New Mexicans today. You will learn what we believe citizens, government and other organizations can do to maintain the bright spots in New Mexico’s health status and to improve areas that need work.  The new millennium offers New Mexicans opportunities to improve their health status. With our public health infrastructure and the increasing capability of information technology, we have the community-level presence and knowledge to create climates in which good health can occur and in which people can make healthy choices. Public and private partnerships are supporting community activities to foster healthy conditions at the community and family levels. In many cases, children and their parents can be helped to obtain training, education or other supports they need for good health. Public health touches all of our lives, every day. But what is public health? Public health is not simply medical care funded or provided through public means. While public health services are less visible and more difficult to understand than medical services, public health protects entire communities or populations from such threats as communicable diseases, epidemics and environmental contaminants. It does so through a highly collaborative approach which most often affects us as members of the general public rather than as patients. As the state’s public health agency, the Department’s mission is to promote health and sound health policy, prevent disease and disability, improve health services systems and assure that critical public health functions and safety net services are available to New Mexicans. Our vision is that New Mexico will be a healthy community in which to live and grow. The process of health assessment determines where and when public health threats are occurring; this State of Health report incorporates such assessment. It is a result of the collection, analysis and interpretation of information about diseases, health conditions, risk behaviors and strengths. This is the same kind of information that is driving the Department’s strategic planning process, which coordinates strategies across DOH’s organizational structure. Objectives and performance measures are also included in the DOH Strategic Plan. Performance measures assess the Department’s progress in five Program Areas:
Our Strategic Plan is intended to address the major health issues which are identified in this State of Health report. Select strategies from the Plan have been incorporated in the “What is being done” and “What needs to be done” segments of the appropriate sections throughout the report. The mission statements and goals of the Strategic Plan's five Program Areas can be found in the Strategic Plan section.
J. Alex Valdez
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