New Mexico’s Health Councils

County and Tribal Health councils, established in 1991 by the New Mexico legislature, help communities organize to identify and focus on local health priorities. The functions of Health Councils were reaffirmed in 2019 by the County and Tribal Health Councils Act (HB 137).

Health Councils are mandated to identify community needs, resources, and priorities; evaluate the community’s system of care with an equity lens; and support education, programming, and advocacy efforts to improve community health.

• Health Councils continue to produce detailed assessments of local health needs and resources on an annual basis.

• Health Councils mobilize communities to address important local health problems.

• Health Councils develop comprehensive, detailed, long-range community health improvement plans that have guided the work of healthcare providers, non-profit organizations, and state, county, city, and tribal government agencies. 

New Mexico’s 33 County Health Councils and 10 Tribal Health Councils are supported by the collaborative efforts of the New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils and the New Mexico Department of Health’s Health Promotion Regional Teams.