Skip to main content
U-M Poverty Solutions Logo U-M Poverty Solutions Logo

Publications

Back to publications

Advancing the Profession and Sustainability of Community Health Workers

March 2018

Jeremy Lapedis, Harvard University, Edith C. Kieffer, University of Michigan, Carrie Rheingans, University of Michigan, and Marianne Udow-Phillips, University of Michigan

Download printable version (Adobe PDF)

Abstract

Community Health Workers (CHWs) strive to bridge gaps between traditional healthcare providers and the communities they serve, but the community health worker profession faces several challenges to realizing its full potential. In the fall of 2017, the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation (CHRT) published an issue brief that focused on the ways State Innovation Model (SIM) grants have helped regions across the nation integrate community health workers into their healthcare systems. In this issue brief, CHRT enumerates the challenges states and health systems will need to overcome as they seek to develop a sustainable revenue stream for this work, to advance the community health worker profession, and to amplify the impact.