Faerl Torres

Faerl Torres is Executive Director of Operations for the University of New Mexico Office for Community Health where her passions for operations, interdisciplinary models, and upstream intervention merge. She oversees operations and strategic planning, SDOH-aligned initiatives, and Community Health Worker-led programs, which focus on improving adversity, workforce development, reducing recidivism, and connecting vulnerable populations to resources. Faerl is first author of SDOH & Health Equity 101—a SDOH course for professional practice that views adversity through an intersectional lens and emphasizes multidisciplinary solutions. Faerl is interested in developing models for upstream intervention of substance use disorder (SUD) and addiction, exploring the impact of paraprofessionals for sustainable care, and prevention-focused programming that can be leveraged to influence policy.

OCH is a leader in health extension and SDOH innovation, with a passion for developing programs that positively impact social needs and make significant differences in the health outcomes and wellbeing New Mexicans. Leveraging the research and network resources of the state’s largest research institution, OCH develops social needs care and intervention service models that focus on community-centered approaches and cultural competence and disseminates them into under-resourced communities across New Mexico. OCH programs include individual intervention models deployed through CHWs and systems-level intervention through health extension agents across a portfolio of over a dozen programs. As a World Health Organization Collaborating Center and home of the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC), OCH is a leader in health extension networking and upstream disruption of non-medical risk factors.