Roles and Functions of Community Health Workers in Primary Care
Community health workers have potential to enhance primary care access and quality, but remain underutilized. To provide guidance on their integration, we characterized roles and functions of community health workers in primary care through a literature review and synthesis. Analysis of 30 studies identified 12 functions (ie, care coordination, health coaching, social support, health assess- […]
Health Care Providers Are Hiring the Wrong People
In healthcare hiring there have long been strong prejudices about race, class and educational attainment. Many of our conventions come from an era when healthcare was delivered primarily by doctors and nurses with elite training whose success depended mostly on content expertise. This paradigm is outdated; we now know that social, behavioral and relational factors are […]
Recommendations to the Health Policy Commission
Our recommendations center on organizing principles and activities that will support the roles that CHWs play, particularly for underserved and vulnerable populations who face challenges in managing their health and for accessing care. We also recommend, under the relevant criterion, that ACOs demonstrate how they are employing CHWs to meet stated goals. A priority recommendation […]
Promoting Community Health Worker Leadership in Policy Development: Results from a Louisiana Workforce Study
Community health workers (CHWs) are effective in improving public health, and many states are developing policy to support the workforce. In 2019, the Louisiana legislature created the CHW Workforce Study Committee (Committee) of at least half CHWs to study the workforce and provide the state with policy recommendations. The Committee followed national best practices in […]
Addressing Health Disparities in the Rural United States: Advocacy as Caregiving among Community Health Workers and Promotores de Salud
Rural populations in the United States are faced with a variety of health disparities that complicate access to care. Community health workers (CHWs) and their Spanish-speaking counterparts, promotores de salud, are well-equipped to address rural health access issues, provide education, and ultimately assuage these disparities. In this article, we compare community health workers in the […]
Being a Community Health Worker Means Advocating: Participation, Perceptions, and Challenges in Advocacy
Community health workers (CHWs) participate in advocacy as a crucial means to empower clients in overcoming health disparities and to improve the health and social well-being of their communities. Building on previous studies, this article proposes a new framework for conceptualising CHW advocacy, depending on the intended impact level of CHW advocacy. CHWs participate in […]
The Louisiana Community Health Worker Workforce Study Committee Report
The Committee examined major CHW policy issues, including options for training CHWs and financing their positions. In addition to reviewing best practices and examining peer-reviewed literature, the Committee collected data about Louisiana CHW and employer perspectives on workforce development issues through a survey and in-depth interviews. Sixty-five CHWs and 37 employers participated in the survey. […]
The need for primary care teams
Health systems with more primary care do better by the people they serve. Their patient populations are healthier, live longer, and have fewer disparities in outcomes based on race, ethnicity, and income. This opinion piece explores the benefits of a stronger primary care force amid the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Establishing voluntary certification of community health workers in Arizona: a policy case study of building a unified workforce
In this article, we describe the process of unifying the two major CHW workforces in Arizona, promotoras de salud in US-Mexico border communities and community health representatives (CHRs) serving American Indian communities. Differences in the origins, financing, and even language of the population-served contributed to historically divergent interests between CHRs and promotoras. In order to […]
A Balanced Portfolio Model For Improving Health: Concept And Vermont’s Experience
A successful strategy for improving population health requires acting in several sectors by implementing a portfolio of interventions. The mix of interventions should be both tailored to meet the community’s needs and balanced in several dimensions – for example, time frame, level of risk, and target population. One obstacle is finding sustainable financing for both […]