RICHMOND, Va. -- This week marks National Public Health Week, a time to focus on promoting health in communities across the U.S., and some Virginia groups are using it to highlight the efforts of one sector of the healthcare workforce that helps with that -- community health workers (CHWs).
"Community health workers are amazing at what they do. They connect individuals, they provide supporting relationships," said Shanteny Jackson, Executive Director of the Virginia Community Health Workers Association. Her group has been going around the state handing out gift bags to CHWs and was at the Chesterfield Health District on Wednesday.
Jackson, who was a CHW herself with the Richmond City Health District, said CHWs go out into the communities they serve to build relationships with people, especially those in underserved communities, and help connect with health resources.
"We are critical because we understand those communities and we have a really close connection to those communities," said Jackson.
"They are helping navigate and find the routes to a very crazy system that we have," added Jana Smith, Population Health Manager with the Chesterfield Health District, which has four CHWs. "They are the face of what we do. They help us get the hard work done. They are in the places where the people are, so they don't sit in an office, they don't sit behind a computer, they go to where the people are to make access easier."
Smith added CHWs often work in the communities they themselves are a part of, which helps with the building of trust.
"If we learned anything from COVID it was gaps, it was health equity, it was disparity gaps and trust, a lot of trust. It's one thing for a person to go in the community and say 'You need X, Y and Z,' and for me not to be able to relate to the community. So, it is very important that we that community health workers are representative of the community, they can build relationships based on cultural similarities," Smith said. "They have an understanding of 'No, this doesn't make sense. This isn't going to resonate with people in my neighborhood. But, this might if we present it like this or if we change our education to be like this.'"
Among the four CHWs at Chesterfield is Richard Siefring, who began working in the public health field at the start of the pandemic as a contact tracer and kept with it as they transitioned him to more work out in the community.
"I think going through it, I just have a drive to help people. It kind of gets me out of bed at the beginning of the day. And this has been a really great opportunity to help people with a right wide variety of things," Siefring said.
He said his work ranges from helping people get a dental appointment but they do not have transportation or get treatment for an illness without health insurance. He said people also ask for help for non-health-related issues such as SNAP or overcoming language barriers to filling out a driver's license application.
Jackson said there are about 1,500 CHWs in Virginia, but there could be more who are working in a volunteer capacity and not counted. However, she added that more is needed and said her group partners with the Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI), which serves D.C., Maryland, and Virginia to strengthen public health, to help train more CHWs -- including through a $4.3-million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Community Health Workers are improving health outcomes and reducing health inequities by working with our communities and helping members one-on-one take charge of their health and navigate resources to help them thrive,” said IPHI president and CEO Michael E. Rhein.
Jackson said she encourages anyone interested in becoming a CHW to check out her organization or IPHI.
"If you are a person whose vested interest is to serve their community, who else is equipped to do it, but you."
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