Simpson Honored by New Mexico Office of African American Affairs

Dr. Anne R. Simp­son was recently hon­ored by the New Mex­ico Office of African Amer­i­can Affairs (OAAA) for her work within the com­mu­nity, includ­ing her role in help­ing to cre­ate the newly formed group, the African America/Black Health­care Pro­fes­sion­als Alliance.

The group seeks to address the social deter­mi­nates of health through the pro­vi­sion of men­tor­ship and advo­cacy to all stu­dents, African American/Black stu­dents in par­tic­u­lar, and by build­ing social and polit­i­cal cap­i­tal in sup­port of bet­ter health out­comes for African Americans/Blacks in New Mex­ico. Simp­son is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for the UNM Health Sci­ences Cen­ter, Cen­ter of Excel­lence for African Amer­i­can Health, and the Rust Pro­fes­sor and Direc­tor for the UNM School of Med­i­cine Insti­tute for Ethics.

“Each year the OAAA is com­mit­ted to iden­ti­fy­ing and select­ing indi­vid­u­als statewide who have demon­strated a gen­uine con­cern to assist oth­ers. Our awardees have shown a com­mit­ment to chang­ing the deliv­ery sys­tem of health care ser­vices in New Mex­ico to ensure the needs of minori­ties are being met,” said Harold Bai­ley, PhD, OAAA exec­u­tive direc­tor. “Dr. Simp­son per­son­ally men­tors stu­dents, and serves as a con­duit to advanced edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for many promis­ing minor­ity students.”

“Every­thing is so spe­cial­ized and frag­mented today that, many times, we’ve lost a sense of com­mu­nity. Yet tra­di­tion­ally, com­mu­ni­ties have been a great source of strength in all areas of life. In cre­at­ing the Health­care Pro­fes­sion­als Alliance, we are seek­ing to recre­ate that source of sup­port, by bring­ing peo­ple together to help men­tor stu­dents inter­ested in health­care and to increase access to health­care sys­tems by peo­ple of all ages,” said Simp­son. “We want to be able to both attract and retain minor­ity health­care pro­fes­sion­als com­ing to New Mexico.”

Simpson’s med­ical prac­tice cen­ters on long-term care, home­care, hos­pice, and pal­lia­tive med­i­cine, with an added focus on elder abuse and mis­treat­ment. She serves as Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for the UNM Cen­ter of Excel­lence on African Amer­i­can Health, which is a part­ner­ship between the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico and the Office of African Amer­i­can Affairs. Under Gov Richard­son, she was appointed to the sub-committee for Elder Pro­tec­tion and Abuse Pre­ven­tion. Simp­son is a for­mer board mem­ber for Unit­ing New Mex­i­cans against Elder Abuse.

She is also board vice– pres­i­dent for New Mex­ico Med­ical Review Asso­ci­a­tion, chairs the board for New Mex­ico Voices for Chil­dren, and is a mem­ber of the board for Pega­sus Legal Ser­vices for Children.