Resources

The RWJF Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico’s October 2009 Newsletter.

The Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice has announced their lectures for the 2009-2010 Colloquium Series - Troubling “Race”: Cutting-Edge Research Design Across the Disciplines. The Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice is an initiative within the RWJF Center for Health Policy to address the pressing social and economic issues that affect the health and well-being of all Americans.  Its mission is to promote the establishment of empirical, theoretical and methodological clarity about “race” that draws on cutting-edgethinking from multiple disciplines and diverse empirical traditions.

 Registration is now open for the 2009 American Indian/Alaska Native Health Policy Conference to be held October 22-23, 2009 at the Hilton Albuquerque in Albuquerque, NM. This two-day conference is designed to provide a national audience with an overview of key American Indian health policy issues that impact access to healthcare services, quality of care and health disparities.  Hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico, Center for Native American Health, and the University of New Mexico, the conference aims to be a national forum to identify policy strategies that improve American Indian healthcare through expanded partnerships with federal and state agencies and with the private sector.

Nancy López and Jane Hood gave this PowerPoint presentation on August 9 2009 at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in San Francisco.  Our presentation reports on results from the RWJF Center for Health Policy - funded research on the effects of race, class, gender, and special education status on high school discipline for all freshmen in a large New Mexico school district. In addition, we have included some  illustrative quotations from an ongoing qualitative study of 10th graders in a large high school in another  Although this presentation focuses on the place of school discipline in the school-to-prison pipeline, our research has many direct and indirect links to health and health policy, the most direct of which is the link between school success and life chances.  The results of our multivariate analysis find a circular relationship between basic skills acquisition, school success, and discipline. Students who do not learn basic skills are more likely to get into trouble than those who have mastered these skills. Since we are studying freshmen only in this research and have data only on students who were enrolled in school, we cannot estimate the effect of discipline on drop-out rates. However, other research shows a direct link between school suspension and the probability of dropping out of school (Wald and Losen, 2003).

The Consequences of Bank Disinvestment on Violent Crime, a presentation by RWJF Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico Senior Fellows María B. Vélez, PhD and Christopher J. Lyons, PhD of the UNM Department of Sociology. Substantial evidence shows that minorities and their neighborhoods receive fewer home mortgage loans and less loan dollars than whites, even after adjusting for important economic controls. Their presentation explores the consequences of this form of racial inequality on violent crime rates across Albuquerque neighborhoods.

The Ninth Annual Binational Policy Forum on Migration and Health will take place on October 5-6, 2009 in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Hilton Santa Fe Resort at Buffalo Thunder. Representatives from federal, state, and community organizations from the United States, Mexico, Canada, South and Central American countries will convene to discuss migrant/immigrant health challenges and to explore unique opportunities to work collaboratively on solutions to eliminate the health iniquities experienced by the underserved Latino populations living across the United States.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ( http://rwjf.org/ ) and the Institute of Medicine ( http://www.iom.edu/ ) in Washington, D.C., have announced the launch of a new initiative to identify nursing care solutions that not only address many of the issues facing the profession but also transform the way Americans receive health care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico will be awarding up to ten new fellowships of $24,000 each with full tuition remission and student health insurance for a total value of more than $31,000 (for non-resident students) and three or more new dissertation fellowships of $12,000 with similar benefits for the academic year 2008-09.  All awards are annual (twelve months) with the possibility of renewal for students in good academic standing. Nominees for the fellowship must demonstrate an interest in health services research or policy analysis that aligns with the mission of the Center.

This presentation discusses the preliminary stages of community based participatory research being conducted by Sean Bruna (PhD. Candidate, Anthropology) in partnership with Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and the Pueblo’s Diabetes Program.

Presentations from the 2009 American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force and Summit on the Future of Psychology Practice are currently available at: www.summitonpsychologypractice.com