Abstract
Community health workers (CHWs) have utilized their special skills and abilities to impact and improve community health for decades. Yet, despite the effectiveness of CHWs, several factors contribute to inconsistent and underutilization of CHWs in program management, clinical care, and research. For the past several years, CHWs have joined forces to actively and collaboratively seek and obtain respect and recognition of the CHW workforce and profession as a part of other health, social, and human service professions. CHWs must represent their communities at local, state, and national government as well as in health, social, and human service delivery systems. This chapter calls for full acceptance and incorporation of CHWs into clinical, research, or community-based care teams, which necessitates acknowledgment and trust of CHW expertise within the system; recognizing and verbalizing CHW work as essential to other public health, social, and human service professions and to the CHWs and communities they serve; and incorporating respect for the unique knowledge, experiences, and contributions CHW bring to the table, advocate for themselves. Our call to action for our readers is for you to find ways to become more involved with CHWs and join the movement to advocate for equity on behalf of all of our communities.
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Mayfield-Johnson, S.L., Hernández-Gordon, W.D., St. John, J.A. (2021). Where Do We Go from Here? A Closing Reflection. In: St. John, J.A., Mayfield-Johnson, S.L., Hernández-Gordon, W.D. (eds) Promoting the Health of the Community . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56375-2_16
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