St. Joseph Community Health is about children. We are focused on the health of children age 0-5 years.  We have adopted the Institute of Medicine’s definition of children’s health:  The extent to which individual children or groups of children are able or enabled to:  1) develop and realize their potential; 2) satisfy their needs; and 3) develop the capacities that allow them to interact successfully with their biological, physical, and social environments.  SJCH is responding to an alarm in New Mexico that represents one of the most urgent needs of our times – the need to give young children a healthy start.

New Mexico ranks 46th in children’s well-being according to a national reporting system, Kids Count, based on 10 indicators: low birth weight, infant mortality, child mortality, teen death rate, teen birth rate, high school dropout rate, teens not working or in school, underemployed parents, children living in poverty and children in single-parent families. Research has shown that 80% of the brain architecture develops between the ages of 0 and 5 years – and early experiences determine whether a child’s developing brain architecture provides a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior and health.