Community Health Workers (CHWs) are vital to ensuring the most vulnerable populations in the country have access to quality healthcare and services. The IHEC’s Community Health Worker Workgroup supports CHWs and their work as lay members of the communities they serve. Because CHWs typically reside in the community they serve, they have the unique ability to bring information where it is needed most, and where community residents live, eat, play, work, and worship.
Objectives
- Foster a community of stakeholders engaged in addressing health disparities and social determinants of health (SDOH) at the local level
- Link public health and housing sectors to support local residents through enhanced access to individual health and social needs, health literacy, and community empowerment
- Assess the feasibility and sustainability of leveraging the HUD Jobs Plus Program to create employment opportunity, economic sustainability, and improved individual and community health outcomes
- Evaluate the impact of embedding trained community health workers within public housing communities to help bridge the gap between healthcare providers and residents
- Develop a CHW PATH implementation toolkit to share evidence-informed best practices of community engagement and collaboration across federal agencies and partners