POLICY BRIEF article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1302655
This article is part of the Research TopicPandemic Response: Challenges, Advances, and Lessons LearntView all 38 articles
Reaffirming Indigenous Data Sovereignty in New Mexico as a Result of COVID-19
Provisionally accepted
- 1Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
- 2Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Despite New Mexico’s history of working with and enhancing collaboration with the 23 Tribes in the state, data sharing and collaboration with Tribes was poor during the COVID-19 pandemic. New Mexico’s policies of state collaboration with Tribes conflicts with the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty and fails to recognize Tribal public health authorities. New Mexico state agencies limited what data Tribes and Tribal Organizations received resulting in the suppression of Tribes’ inherent rights. This policy brief concludes with recommendations for the state of New Mexico to respect Tribal sovereignty, uphold the tenants of Indigenous Data Sovereignty, restore trust with Tribes, and support increased capacity and capability of Tribes.
Keywords: New Mexico, Arizona, tribal governance, Indigenous data sovereignty, COVID-19, data sharing, Public Policy
Received: 26 Sep 2023; Accepted: 30 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Carson, Cordova-Marks, Jennings and Carroll. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: William Oyenque Carson, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85724, Arizona, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.