For seniors living in remote New Mexico communities, keeping up with the tasks of rural life — hopping over acequias, wandering through orchards, walking on uneven dirt roads — can bring benefits and challenges.
Those activities can keep seniors’ minds and bodies active, said Tana Beverwyk-Abouda, executive director of Bridge to Health NM, a nonprofit wellness center based in Española. But they also can also expose elders to unique hazards — especially falls, which in 2025 were the leading cause of injury-related death for New Mexicans 65 and older.
“Our lifestyles in the rural areas, it’s a strength and it’s a risk,” Beverwyk-Abouda said.
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
Starting in the fall, an initiative will bring a fall prevention program created in New Zealand to communities across Northern New Mexico. Research has shown participants in the Otago Exercise Program — a regimen of strength and balance exercises developed at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand — experience a significant reduction in falls.
“We already know these programs work; they have been researched up to here,” said Ann Church, co-chair of the New Mexico Adult Fall Prevention Coalition and executive director of Villages of Santa Fe, which offers exercise, strength and balance classes to seniors throughout Santa Fe County.
She continued, “The question is, how does this happen in rural areas — where it’s more difficult to get a location, more difficult to get qualified instructors, more difficult to get even information?”
In 2023, 213 New Mexicans ages 65 and older died after an unintentional fall, according to data from the state Department of Health. Fall-related deaths are trending steadily downward: The age-adjusted death rate from falls among older adults in New Mexico dropped 41% between 2019 and 2023, the most recent year for which data was available.
But fall-related hospitalizations have been increasing year-over-year since 2020, with nearly 7,000 such hospitalizations in 2023 compared to about 5,800 in 2020, the data shows.
Christus St. Vincent Health System in its most recent community health needs assessment listed fall-related deaths as the top indicator of older adult health in Santa Fe — where nearly 3 in 10 residents are 65 or older.
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
Strength and balance training can help seniors prevent and recover from falls, Church said, and the social component of exercise classes keeps isolation — which can also increase fall risk — at bay.
The trouble is, she added, rural areas often don’t have the trained instructors to get a fall prevention class up and running, let alone manage logistics like finding a location, marketing a class and procuring liability insurance.
A training session last week taught providers from Santa Fe, Española, Santa Rosa and Santo Domingo Pueblo how to implement the Otago Exercise Program and establish sustainable exercise programs in their communities.
Classes based on the Otago program will launch in September. While the schedule has not been set, Church anticipates three 10-week sessions over several months. Each host community will teach the Otago Exercise Program — but personalize it for their area.
“Our communities are different. They may be next door to each other, but they are different,” Church said.
As a result, she added, the plan is to “work with the four different groups to see how that actually works, how we implement it, and how each group adapts specifically for their community.”
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
