"Although they share many of the same roles,
CHWs are typically not volunteers; they are employees in the healthcare system.
The growing need for personnel within the healthcare system who can provide
medical and cultural translation, health education, information and referrals,
intake and eligibility services, case management, and advocacy to diverse
patient population has formalized the CHW position in many healthcare
settings."
~Mary
Beth Love, Kristen Gardner and Vicki Legion
To begin, a simple
definition of a community health worker (CHW) will be necessary. A CHW is
usually a member of a community who works within
that setting, connecting health care consumers - who traditionally lack access
to care- with health care providers. CHWs respond to local needs by identifying
problems, developing solutions and putting those solutions into practice.
The essential goal of
CHWs is to empower communities to identify their own needs and work to
implement solutions to meet these needs. CHW’s can be found across the globe,
and the need for these health workers is ever broadening with the world
population increasing. In successful
CHW programs, certain patterns and relationships exist; these include the
continual assessment of health needs and demographics of the community; the
hiring of staff that represent and reflect the cultural and linguistic
diversity of the community; the incorporation of scientific knowledge
concerning medical care and relates to local issues and traditions; the
establishment of partnerships; and finally, the availability of resources to
support the programs.
Growing populations increases the
demand for health care workers in both rich and poor countries. WHO estimated a shortage of 4.3 million workers in
order to meet the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The poor
countries are disproportionately affected and suffer from a lack of community
health workers. The shortage of community health workers is at a crisis point. Many countries face the similar issue of
inadequate funding of health worker education and training. There are 57
countries that are labeled as “critical countries” because many of their people go without health care; 36 of
the 57 countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa
bears the greatest burden of disease globally because of the shortage and
access to health care. There is a great imbalance within Africa, which carries 25% of the world’s
disease burden yet has only 3% of health workers. In 2006 Dr. Mubashar Sheikh
developed the Global Health Workforce Alliance in an attempt to pull together
national governments and other organizations interested in promoting health.
His take on improving health
systems is not building fancy hospitals, but instead developing
well-trained and well-motivated people with access to drugs and care for
patients. It is also important to provide an environment for workers to want to
stay and help. Dr. Sheikh states,
"Countries losing health workers need to give it top priority and keep the
right environment and conditions which encourage health workers to stay within
their own community." If you are able to train the right people it can
make a great impact on the health of a community. For example, Ethiopia and
Tanzania have made great strides by training large numbers of community health
workers, who often do not want to move away.
I encourage everyone
to check out the link for the campaign “ One Million Community Health Workers.” In order to reach the goal of 1
million workers, it takes one person to take action to support and then spread
the word about community health workers for others to support.
The cost benefits/quality of life increases due to use of
CHW’s in the U.S.
The U.S. is experiencing rapidly ballooning health care
costs, as well as seriously poor health outcomes for
a developed country. CHWs pack a cost-benefit punch that may well serve as an
integral component of the cure for the United States’ sick health care system. Wilder Research Center reports within a study of CHW services
in cancer outreach that “that for every dollar invested in CHWs, society
receives $2.30 in return”. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what research
is showing us about the benefits of utilizing CHW’s. A study of 117 Medicaid patients with Diabetes
in West Baltimore showed that a CHW intervention program was able to save 2,245
dollars per patient and a total of 262,080 for the 117 patients involved in the
study. In Hawaii a study
showed that a CHW intervention regarding those
with asthma resulted in a increased quality of life, decreased emergency room
visits, and a reduction of $735 to $181 in asthma-related per-capita charges.
Additional
Information: Community Health Workers
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“Enough
trained, supervised and supported health workers – to deliver care for mothers
and children when and where it is needed. The most pressing need is for at
least 350,000 midwives and 1 million community health workers” (World Vision:
Health Care Workers).
● “Demand
creation – empowering individuals, families and communities to become active
participants in improving their own health and hold governments accountable for
the delivery of health care” (World Vision: Health Care Workers).
● “Reaching
the poorest by encouraging health workers to serve in remote locations and
underserved areas and ensure they overcome often substantial barriers to
accessing health care, including user fees and transport costs” (World Vision: Health Care
Workers ).
Table 4.This shows the need
for more CHW being from different backgrounds and not majority being of African
American, Latino/a race/ethnicity.
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Table 6. Shows what are factors that make an employer want to hire a CHW.
Here are some videos of Community Health Workers
Eman Reda
Lizbeth Mota
Sophie Storck
Nicole Piete
Austin Amstutz
Blog post
12/4/13
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