NMSDOH-C is a collaborative of community-based groups, health care agencies, governments, businesses, and organizations working together to share data and resources and to promote health equity for all New Mexicans.
Addressing the Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) in communities and Health Related Social Needs (HRSN) of individuals is essential to improving the health and well-being of New Mexicans. We bring community voices together to address barriers in connecting individuals to preventive services, social services and treatment.
What are the Collaborative's goals?
- Develop shared outcome measures, monitor progress, and share data on local resources and initiatives to prioritize investments and improve outcomes across state and local agencies, health systems, and community-based organizations.
- Lead the development and implementation of a community-driven, coordinated, closed loop health and social service referral system/s that meets the needs of our local communities.
- Convene stakeholders from across the state to support alignment across SDOH initiatives, identify opportunities for collaboration, improve policies, and create shared accountability towards achieving our purpose.
What do workgroups do?
Workgroups meet monthly to support the goals of the Collaborative. Voting membership identifies what collaboration is needed to address social drivers of health in New Mexico, and a Steering Committee chairs the effort.
Our current workgroups are:
What are Social Drivers of Health (SDOH)?
The Collaborative uses the term Social Drivers of Health deliberately.
Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. The use of the word ‘determinants’ in this context can be problematic because it suggests that a patient’s health outcome is predetermined by their social circumstances, without any possibility of intervention or change.
In contrast, although the term Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) has the same meaning as Social Determinants of Health, use of the word ‘drivers’ instead of ‘determinants’ emphasizes that social and structural factors are dynamic and can be influenced by policy and action.
What is a closed loop referral system?
When a person completes a Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) screening and a health-related social need is identified, a closed-loop referral provides multi-directional care. This means healthcare professionals, government agencies, and community-based organizations (CBOs) can refer their patient or client to the organization that will best address identified individual needs or healthcare needs.