Health policymakers in many countries are looking at ways of increasing health care coverage by scaling up the deployment of community health workers. Traditionally this has been seen as an option for low and middle income countries with inadequate numbers of trained health professionals. In this commentary, we describe the rationale for the UK to learn from Brazil's scaled-up … [Read more...] about Learning from the Brazilian community health worker model in North Wales.
Policy
Measuring return on investment of outreach by community health workers.
Community health workers (CHWs) are effective in improving access to health care, promoting client knowledge and behavior change, and contributing to improved health status of individuals. However, few outreach programs have evaluated the financial impact of CHWs on health care systems and policies. A longitudinal repeated measures design was used to assess the return on … [Read more...] about Measuring return on investment of outreach by community health workers.
Texas’ Community Health Workforce: From State Health Promotion Policy to Community-level Practice
In 1999, Texas became the first state in the nation to recognize these workers and their contributions to keeping Texans healthy. This paper examines a state health promotion policy that culminated in a training and certification program for promotores and the impact of this program on the lay health education workforce in Texas. In 1999, the Texas legislature established the … [Read more...] about Texas’ Community Health Workforce: From State Health Promotion Policy to Community-level Practice
CHWs get credit: a 10-year history of the first college-credit certificate for community health workers in the United States.
Community health workers have become increasingly important in the U.S. health care system, playing a significant role in basic health promotion and care coordination; however, their status and visibility have not kept pace with their wider use. A major impediment has been the absence of systematic preparation-the field needs standardized education in programs that emphasize … [Read more...] about CHWs get credit: a 10-year history of the first college-credit certificate for community health workers in the United States.
Community health workers and medicaid managed care in New Mexico.
We describe the impact of community health workers (CHWs) providing community-based support services to enrollees who are high consumers of health resources in a Medicaid managed care system. The CHWs provided patients education, advocacy and social support for a period up to 6 months. For all measures, there was a significant reduction in both numbers of claims and payments … [Read more...] about Community health workers and medicaid managed care in New Mexico.