Community Voices
Miami at the Collins Center for Public Policy
Community Health Workers as
a Pathway to Healthcare (1)
Nearly 20 percent of Florida’s population lacks health
insurance. In Miami-Dade County alone, the uninsured represent
more than a quarter of the population of 2 million residents. With
public health care budgets shrinking and the cost of personal health
insurance outpacing the rate of inflation, promising approaches
that help connect the uninsured and some of the most vulnerable
populations to health care are critical. Community Voices Miami,
a program of the Collins Center for Public Policy, is working to
develop practical, community based solutions that will help communities
access health care, regardless of insurance status. One promising
method for connecting people to care is through the Community Health
Worker (CHW) model.
What's a Community Healthcare Worker?
CHWs are known by many names around
the world, including lay health advisors, community health advisors,
community health representatives, or promotoras. CHWs can be traced
back to the early 17th century and have arisen in different parts
of the world, as indigenous community helpers who connect people
to needed services, not only in health. CHWs are members of the
community who work almost exclusively to connect fellow community
members in need of healthcare or social services. This profession
targets groups that have traditionally lacked access to adequate
care and the particularly vulnerable.
In the United States, CHWs are playing an important role in helping
many of the uninsured access much needed health care. In building
trust and relationships with individuals in that community, CHWs
are helping people to link to healthcare and other services they
need by: 1) empowering them with information about what services
are available; 2) helping them get to those services and navigate
an often cumbersome system; and 3) connecting them to a medical
home so that necessary referrals, coordination of services and
primary care and prevention can be the focus of treatment.
Why Promote Community Healthcare Workers?
CHWs are providing an important health
and social service in the country today by helping to link uninsured
and vulnerable populations to needed health care. They are navigators
who create pathways through the system so that all people can receive
care in a timely and appropriate fashion, instead of in an emergency
room, where the care is most costly. CHWs also play an important
role in educating communities about preventive care and other social
services available which are available. The presence of these workers
is indispensable to so many who are marginalized by their health
insurance status and/or their knowledge of what may be available.
CHWs thus have great potential in helping communities to stay healthy.
Community Voices Miami is working to develop this practice more
fully in Miami-Dade County and also works with other colleagues
around the country to highlight CHW as an approach that can help
vulnerable populations to receive preventive and primary care.
Community Voices Miami is also in the process of developing a standardized
training curriculum for those CHWs who wish to pursue a higher
level of education in this field.
