Above Image Courtesy of The Health Equity Partnership - NMHEP partners engage in a grounding exercise during a small group gathering in Albuquerque.

The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership’s (NMHEP) purpose is to strengthen the capacity of communities to shift power relations and advocate for policy and systems changes to create healthy and just communities. With our partners, we change the narrative around health equity and racial equity through community-based research and creative storytelling. The heart of our work is building the capacity of grassroots organizations to conduct community driven research to make a compelling case to decision makers on issues that affect community health and racial justice. NMHEP provides training and technical assistance in conducting community driven research. Key tools include Health Impact Assessments (HIAs), photovoice, graphic recording, and other creative storytelling methods.

New Mexico needs community members actively involved in making a difference, and it needs a strong set of community-based organizations learning from one another and serving as a galvanizing force to offer creative solutions. NMHEP works to make this possible.  We build infrastructure through trainings, coaching and by sharing tools that allow communities to hold policymakers accountable. We help elevate the community’s voice so residents can be the drivers of change.

Image Courtesy of the Health Equity Partnership. Members of the San Miguel County Health Impact Assessment Team present their research on the need for a reintegration program for individuals exiting incarceration.

The New Mexico Health Equity Partnership believes that every New Mexican should have the opportunity to lead a healthy life, live in neighborhoods where children and families thrive, and have a say in decisions that impact their communities and lives.  We recognize that communities are experts in their own lives and seek to provide support and resources so that they can actualize their own visions of racial justice and health equity. We see this work as ongoing, and evolving, and commit to standing with our community partners for as long as is needed.

Over the next year NMHEP will build the capacity of our partners to engage in impactful community-based research. NMHEP plans to grow and energize our partnership network, focusing on building new relationships in underrepresented parts of the state, including communities outside the Rio Grande corridor, Indigenous, Black, immigrant, and youth communities. We work with under-represented communities to build their capacity to shift power relations.

Learn more about us at: www.nmhep.org