History of the Texas Border Health Foundation

In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed a law that called on the Department of State Health Services to create a new foundation - the Texas Border Health Foundation - to improve the health and health care of their fellow Texans along the border with Mexico.

In 2005, recognizing that efforts to promote health and prevent disease must know no boundaries, especially along our critical and heavily crossed border with Mexico, the legislature expanded the state’s work with the Foundation to include the many health related issues across the Rio Grande in Mexico that affect Texans.

In the spring of 2005, the IRS certified the TXBHF as an independent nonprofit foundation. Since then, the TXBHF received two small grants from the binational U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission, and a larger state grant in January of 2006 to fund the implementation of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) efforts to reduce the relatively high incidence of tuberculosis in this region.