Daniel Montaño
Public Health ReporterDaniel Montaño is a reporter with KUNM's Public Health, Poverty and Equity project. He is also an occasional host of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Let's Talk New Mexico since 2021, is a born and bred Burqueño who first started with KUNM about two decades ago, as a production assistant while he was in high school. During the intervening years, he studied journalism at UNM, lived abroad, fell in and out of love, conquered here and there, failed here and there, and developed a taste for advocating for human rights.
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Falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths of older New Mexicans, according to a Department of Health report released Tuesday. The new report looked at data from 2019 to 2023, and found although mortality from falls decreased by 41% during that time, from 347 deaths to 213, hospitalizations increased. -
Opioid overdoses have spiked dramatically in parts of Northern New Mexico according to the Department of Health. Testing revealed significantly increased fentanyl levels are the likely culprits. Overdoses increased by 48% in Rio Arriba County, 104% in Santa Fe County and 340% in Taos County from July through September of this year compared to the same period last year. -
The Albuquerque City Council unanimously approved a plan Monday for a program aimed at helping people in recovery get housing. The Continuing Sobriety Housing Voucher Program will begin as a pilot with up to 25 people. It will be aimed at folks who are exiting detox or residential treatment programs and it will require continued sobriety, and ongoing enrollment in Narcotics or Alcoholics Anonymous. Participants would also be subject to drug screens to maintain enrollment. -
A first of its kind report for New Mexico looks at a particular demographic of people living above the federal poverty level, but still struggling to make ends meet. The study found 46% of New Mexico households fall below the threshold for what United Way calls ALICE. -
With federal cuts to food assistance already hitting states, and even more coming down the line, the Legislative Finance Committee told state lawmakers that high rates of food insecurity will likely get worse in New Mexico. -
The New Mexico Department of Health announced last week a public health order aimed at expanding access to the COVID vaccine. On Friday NMDOH and the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy released updated protocols and recommendations in order to ensure as many people as possible have easy access to the vaccines. -
Democratic U.S. Senator for New Mexico, Ben Ray Lujan, had sharp words for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Senate Finance Committee Hearing Thursday morning. -
State lawmakers recently made their disappointment clear with the Department of Health during a presentation of an evaluation of the state’s medication assisted treatment program for substance use disorder. It came just weeks after an announcement that DOH would be expanding the program. -
New Mexico’s congressional delegation is calling for more oversight of funds meant to soften the impact of federal health care cuts in rural areas. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) sent a letter signed by 27 Democratic members of Congress, including New Mexico's other representatives, Democrats Gabe Vasquez and Melanie Stansbury, to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -
Federal cuts to food assistance through the budget reconciliation bill, better known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” put more than 450,000 New Mexicans at risk seeing their benefits drop by more than 20%, or losing their assistance altogether. But, state officials say they’ll do everything they can to fill gaps left by those federal cuts.
