Sentinel Communities Insights—Impacts of COVID-19 and Pandemic Response on Children and Families: San Juan County, New Mexico
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Report Publish Date: March 2021
This report examines decisions officials in San Juan County, N.M., made during the pandemic about preventing the spread of COVID-19 and reducing its economic effects, as well as the impact those decisions had on children and families.
Primary Takeaways
San Juan County was designated a COVID-19 hotspot, which led to greater restrictions and shutdowns than in other parts of New Mexico. The prolonged shutdowns exacerbated economic pressures on the region’s three main industries (oil and gas, retail, and hospitality), affected mental health and child wellbeing, and caused nonprofits to struggle to meet people’s needs.
Overview and Objectives
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation began tracking response and recovery in nine communities that were part of its Sentinel Communities Project, including San Juan County, N.M.
In this report, the authors wanted to explore the effect San Juan County's pandemic response had on children and families.
Hypothesis or Approach
The authors collected information available through early February 2021.
How This Influences Change
Understanding how local officials responded to the pandemic and how policies affected children and families can help shape future policies and responses to new health threats.
Research: Go Deeper
In 2020, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) began tracking the COVID-19 response and recovery efforts of nine communities across the United States with the goal of better understanding how the pandemic, and the local response to it, is impacting health, well-being, and equity in those communities.
Previous reports summarized the pandemic’s early impacts (released July 2020) and the ways cross-sector collaboration has contributed to ongoing response and recovery efforts (released October 2020). In this series of reports, we examine the impact of the pandemic on children and families.
When COVID-19 began rapidly spreading in the U.S., policymakers issued stay-at-home orders, closed businesses, and restricted group gatherings. Schools also moved to remote instruction and many child-care services closed. Since then, response and recovery have been shaped by decisions made by local and state officials with respect to the reopening of businesses, schools, and child-care facilities, and the investments that communities are making to support the safety and well-being of working families and to facilitate remote learning.
In this report, based on information available through early February 2021, we look at decisions the community of San Juan County, N.M., has made with respect to its economy and COVID-19 mitigation, and the impacts those decisions are having on children and families and on equity.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, March 2021
Research Team
This study and report was conducted and created by the following people.
- RAND Corporation
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