LOS LUNAS — When she was in elementary school, Alexis Cathey thought she would be a veterinarian due to her love of animals. After volunteering at shelters when she got older and realizing she was allergic to dogs, that plan was set aside.

“I still love animals. I’ll still pet dogs and just deal with the consequences,” Cathey said.

Four months into her position at the New Mexico Department of Health as a health promotion specialist for Valencia County, based out of the Los Lunas Public Health Office, she says one of her favorite things is getting to see the variety of livestock during her drive to work.

With working with animals off the table, Cathey knew she also had a love of science and health care in general while in high school. That wasn’t a surprise, considering she has four family members who are nurses — her grandmother, mother and two aunts.

Alexis Cathey is the new health promotion specialist for Valencia County. In her four months on the job, she has begun making community connections to increase awareness of the resources the New Mexico Department of Health offers residents throughout the county.

In college, she started down the pre-med path, but after learning more about health care in general and specifically public health, her focus changed.

“I felt like public health was the correct feel for me because I felt like prevention was its focus,” she said. “Medicine, in general, is focused on one patient at a time and I wanted something that has the maximum impact on the whole community.”

Cathey followed that feeling, earing a Bachelor of Science from French Ball State University, majoring in biology with a minor in public health. She went on to get a Master of Public Health from Illinois Urbana-Champaign, focusing on health behavior and promotion concentration.

While in college, she was a public health ambassador, which Cathey says is similar to her current position with NMDOH. As an ambassador, she would “table” at community events, to help bring awareness to the community, often focusing on specific issues like domestic violence during October.

“We would inform people about the statistics, how to identify red flags and risks,” she said. “And how to get help and the resources on campus that were available.”

Letting people know about resources available to them has become a passion for Cathey, “and seeing people who don’t know anything (about a topic) be interested just further instilled the desire of wanting to teach people about what was available.”

As the health promotion specialist in Valencia County, her primary responsibility is to promote the numerous resources available through the Department of Health and make people aware of them.

“Not everybody knows we’re here,” she said.

Public health offices offer a wide variety of services and resources form vaccinations, family planning, cancer screenings, even tuberculosis treatment, she said.

Every office offers a slightly different array of resources depending on community need, so Cathey recommends checking with your local office for specifics.

The Los Lunas Public Health Office is at 445 Camino Del Rey. It can be reached at 505-222-0940, and is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Belen Public Health Office is at 617 Becker Avenue. It can be reached at 505-864-7743, and is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Another large part of her job is facilitating mobile health outreach to provide services for the community primarily dealing with harm reduction. According to Harm Reduction International, “Harm reduction refers to policies, programs and practices that aim to minimize the negative health, social and legal impacts associated with drug use, drug policies and drug laws.

“Harm reduction is grounded in justice and human rights. It focuses on positive change and on working with people without judgment, coercion, discrimination, or requiring that people stop using drugs as a precondition of support.”

The mobile health outreach helps provide resources for people who use substances “so they can reduce the risk of negative outcomes of using those substances, as well as reducing the risk of diseases that can spread because people choose to use substance together,” Cathey said.

During the outreach events, she also provides NARCAN — a nasal spray administered to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose — as well as offering primary health care education.

“We want to get them those other resources such as medications for opioid use disorder that can reduce the risk of negative outcomes from using substances and educating them in general about the risks,” she said.

Cathey will also work closely with the Valencia County Community Wellness Council, providing technical assistance, research and data. Her role requires her to build community partnerships with organizations across the county as well as businesses and government agencies.

“So far I’ve done tablings at the Fourth of July Event in Belen and La Vida Felicidad’s family fun event,” she said. “I need to know about community organizations so when people come to the table and ask for something other than what we provide, I can refer them.”

The more she gets to know the community, the better she’ll be able to identify needs and advocate for resources, she said.

“If people tell me about issues that are related to health that we don’t provide, I can be a voice and try to get that moving. Maybe we could collaborate with another organization to help people solve issues,” she said. “The best thing about my job is when I’m at events ... and you kind of see people’s faces light up like, ‘Oh my gosh, you guys have this.’ Seeing their faces when we can provide what they need to help them out is amazing.”

Cathey is trained in harm reduction and able to give presentations on the topic of overdose response and education about medications for opioid use disorder to community members if requested.

To request she table at an event or give a presentation, contact Cathey at alexis.cathey@doh.nm.gov.

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New health promotion specialist to begin community connections