Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities: Academic-community partnership to support workforce capacity building among Arizona community health workers

Authors: Dulce J Jiménez, Omar Gomez, Ruby Meraz, Amanda M Pollitt, Linnea Evans, Naomi Lee, Matt Ignacio, Katherine Garcia, Richard Redondo, Floribella Redondo, Heather J Williamson, Sabrina Oesterle, Sairam Parthasarathy, Samantha Sabo

This study sought to learn about community experiences and perspectives related to COVID, and inform community health worker/representative (CHW/R) workforce capacity building efforts. To do so, a series of focus groups were conducted with CHW/Rs throughout Arizona, U.S. at two time points in 2021. The results showed that CHW/Rs informed the development of culturally and linguistically relevant health education messages, materials, and training for this workforce. These findings suggest that partnerships between a statewide CHW professional association and an academic research team can help facilitate rapid decision-making and knowledge sharing to create community-grounded tools and resources supportive of CHW/R workforce capacity building.