Community health workers serve as essential connectors between communities and health services. Health promotoras, health educators, community ambassadorsββthough known by many different names, community health workers are frontline public health workers who leverage their unique understanding of local language and culture to connect communities to health care and social support.
Our experiences have shown that a robust community health workforce is crucial for achieving better health equity, empowering communities, and building a stronger public health system. Across the globe, community health workers play a vital role in reducing health burdens while significantly improving the health and lives of people in their communities.
In the U. Communities of color and people living in low-income and rural areas face countless challenges such as documentation status, access to transportation, and translation support that make not only accessing, but navigating the health system difficult. Community health workers are crucial to mitigating these barriers by supporting their own communities in identifying culturally relevant resources, navigating complex health and social service systems, and advocating for the design of more accessible health services.
A robust community health workforce is vital for achieving better health equity, empowering communities, and building a stronger public health system. Four Community Health Organizers from local community-based organizations in Chicago are enhancing their capacity to address public health needs by attending PIH-US-led trainings in advocacy, organizing, public health skill-building, and resource navigation. Each organizer has identified projects within their organization that they would like to introduceβfrom creating wraparound services for a growing immigrant community and advocacy campaigns for Medicaid expansion, to improving staff wellness servicesβto mobilize their neighbors in the fight for environmental justice and health equity.
PIH-US and our partners at HealthCare Network hired and trained community health workers in Immokalee to go door-to-door to connect community members to health and social services. In doing so, they help the primarily migrant community overcome barriers to health care like travel times, costs, and stigma. Throughout , 15 community health workers completed over 8, engagements with community members including conducting COVID mobile testing, facilitating transportation to vaccine events, and serving as resource navigators.
