Skip to main content
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Community health workers

Using Community Health Workers and Volunteers to Reach Complex Needs Populations
A recorded webinar that discusses how to integrate community health workers (CHWs) and volunteers into the healthcare system to care for complex patients in hard-to-reach areas. Includes a case study from rural Montana about collaborating with volunteers to help socially isolated patients access community resources and social services.
Date: 04/2017
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
view details
Home-Based Care for Chronic Kidney Disease
Provides an update to the story of the Zuni people of western New Mexico and the health conditions they commonly face: chronic kidney disease and diabetes. Describes the Home-Based Kidney Care model to train tribal members fluent in Zuni to become community health workers. The community health workers visit patients weekly, providing them with education on healthy lifestyles, medication support, and data collection. The original story, published in July 2014, is included at the end of the update.
Date: 03/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
view details
Community Health Workers Get Trained to Reduce Oral Health Disparities
Highlights programs serving the Navajo Nation, Texas colonias, and Appalachian Maryland that use community health workers to provide oral health education and improve access dental care.
Author(s): Jenn Lukens
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 03/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
view details
Community Health Workers: Recommendations for Bridging Healthcare Gaps in Rural America
Policy brief reviewing research findings on community health worker (CHW) integration, and how CHWs can help bridge healthcare gaps in rural communities. Also reviews various state policies related to CHWs, identifies a number of care settings where CHWs are working in rural areas, and makes policy recommendations to support the continued integration of CHWs into the rural healthcare delivery system.
Author(s): Kailyn Dorhauer Mock, Tracy Morton, Prisci Quijada, Julie St. John
Date: 02/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Association
view details
State Law Fact Sheet: A Summary of State Community Health Worker Laws
Details the state laws pertaining to Community Health Workers as of June 30, 2016. Includes laws defining scope of practice, team-based care models, reimbursement, and the core certification process.
Date: 2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
view details
Rural Health Networks and Care Coordination: Health Care Innovation in Frontier Communities to Improve Patient Outcomes and Reduce Health Care Costs
Discusses the findings of a single-case, community-based participatory design study in a frontier community in northern Minnesota to determine the effectiveness of developing a community care team focused on collaboration and care coordination to improve patient outcomes and reduce emergency room use.
Author(s): Pat Conway, Heidi Favet, Laurie Hall, Jenny Uhrich, Jeanette Palcher, et al.
Citation: Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 27(4A), 91–115
Date: 11/2016
Type: Document
view details
Innovations in Rural Health System Development: Recruiting and Retaining Maine's Health Care Workforce
Illustrates examples of rural-focused medical education programs to support an adequate supply of physicians in rural Maine. Also, discusses behavioral and oral health workforce development, and promising programs utilizing other types of healthcare workers such as community paramedics and community health workers (CHWs) to increase the availability and accessibility of healthcare in rural Maine and in other rural regions of the U.S.
Author(s): Amanda Burgess, Andrew F. Coburn
Date: 11/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Maine Health Access Foundation, Maine Rural Health Research Center
view details
Project ECHO's Complex Care Initiative: Building Capacity to Help "Superutilizers" in Underserved Communities
Describes a case study from the University of New Mexico's Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) program, which uses telehealth to support primary care clinicians in underserved areas. Focuses on a project targeting Medicaid beneficiaries with substance abuse and mental health issues, with details on two primary care teams being supported, including one in a rural New Mexico community.
Author(s): Martha Hostetter, Sarah Klein, Douglas McCarthy
Date: 08/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Commonwealth Fund
view details
Madison Outreach and Services through Telehealth (MOST) Network
Video featuring the Madison Outreach Services through Telehealth (MOST) Network, which serves the Hispanic/Latino population of Brazos Valley, Texas. Highlights their partnership with Texas A&M's Telehealth Counseling Clinic, where doctoral-level students and promotoras connect with patients in remote clinics to offer mental health and substance abuse counseling.
Date: 07/2016
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
view details
Health without Borders
Video featuring the Health without Borders (HwoB) program, which uses promotoras to provide immunizations door-to-door. This approach is popular in Mexico and provides a familiar experience for the immigrants that HwoB serves in Luna County, New Mexico.
Date: 06/2016
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
view details