Ph.D. in Kinesiology - New Mexico Tech

The most current estimates suggest that the total cost of obesity and related diseases to
New Mexico (including state and private dollars) exceeds 400 million dollars annually.
In addition, New Mexico experiences a higher than average prevalence of health-related
problems as a result of disproportionately high incidence of obesity in Hispanics and
persons of lower-income. Furthermore, minority and lower SES older adults are also
susceptible to a greater number of disabling conditions and injurious falls.
Approximately one out of every three adults over the age of 60 and one out of every two
adults over the age of 80 will fall each year. Many of these falls will result in
hospitalization, the average cost of which is in excess of $20,000. Hence, the costs
attributed to functional decline in older adults are astronomical, and even the most
current estimates are out of date.
With respect to such critical public health issues, the HPDR faculty members have
already engaged with a number of public health and extension offices including, the
New Mexico State Department of Health, the Southwest Institute for Health Disparities
Research which operates out of the NMSU School of Health and Human Services, and
the NMSU Agricultural Extension programs to name a few, for the purpose of engaging
in research and outreach in a number of public health initiatives.
In addition, faculty members in HPDR have established partnerships with the Las Cruces
and Gadsden Public School Systems. The implementation of the PhD program in
Kinesiology will further advance these partnerships in a fashion that significantly
improves the training of future health and physical education teachers and the
delivery of health and physical education curricula in the public schools.
The perspective of the department and training of its faculty is such that graduate
productivity in Kinesiology will have a direct and positive impact on advancing the
public health agenda of the state, thereby lowering healthcare costs associated with
sedentary lifestyle and hypokinetic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and
atherosclerotic heart disease. We have provided letters of support from these agencies
(see Appendix A), further substantiating the benefit of the proposed PhD program in
Kinesiology.
b. Direct and immediate impact on New Mexico State University. The Human Capital
Theory posits that investment in the training of human resources today will pay
dividends in the future in terms of individual earning streams and a number of positive
social outcomes that accompany such a payoff. However, in the case of PhD programs,
there is also an immediate and significant financial benefit to the state through its
impact at New Mexico State University.
In the Arts & Sciences model of university education, the PhD student represents a level
of expertise and training, juxtaposed between tenure-track faculty and undergraduate
students. As such, the PhD student has a level of training that allows him or her to serve
as an extension of the faculty member in teaching, research, and service. In fact, the
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