Abstract: Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities: Implications for Social Work Policy and Practice (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Schedule:

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Independence BR C, ML 4 (Marriott Marquis Washington DC)

* noted as presenting author

Katie Stalker, PhD, Associate Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

Mary Ellen Brown, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin, TX

Flavio Marsiglia, PhD, Regents' Professor and Director, Arizona State University, AZ

Ada Wilkinson-Lee, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Arizona, AZ

Noelle Wiggins, PhD, Co-Principal Investigator/Co-Executive Director, CHW Center for Research and Evaluation, MA

Zoe Baccam, MPH LMSW, Research Analyst, Arizona State University, AZ

Caroline Evans, PhD, Lead Evaluator, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC

Durrell Fox, CHW - Senior Technical Associate, JSI Research and Training Institute, Inc., GA

Background and Purpose

Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities (CCR) was a $340 million CDC program that funded 67 recipients (e.g., local or State Health Departments) across the United States. These recipients implemented Community Health Worker (CHW) strategies over a 3-year period to decrease the impact of COVID-19, foster community resilience, address health disparities, and address social determinants of health. The purpose of this presentation is to review the major findings of the national evaluation of the CCR program and highlight social work practice and policy implications. National evaluation findings are organized according to the high-level CCR strategies established by the CDC: Train, Deploy, and Engage.

Methods

The CCR national evaluation included a variety of data sources: recipient reported semi-annual Performance Measures (n = 67; 6 time-points), a survey completed by recipients (n = 63), a survey completed by CHWs at recipient sites (n = 689), and five special studies. Special study topics included CHW integration, CHW sustainability, community resilience, referral completion, and racial equity. Both qualitative (thematic analysis) and quantitative (descriptive; longitudinal trend) analysis techniques were employed.

Results

Train. The CCR program resulted in intensive and broad training opportunities for CHWs, with some key differences depending on the organization’s previous experience working with CHWs. CHWs reported receiving in-depth core competency training, with “>20 hours” as the most frequently selected response option. Organizations with previous experience working with CHWs were more quickly able to offer comprehensive training opportunities to CHWs.

Deploy. A total of 69.3% of CHWs reported engaging in all 10 CHW core roles. CHWs also engaged in key COVID-19 activities, including supporting COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites, making connections to testing and treatment, and providing culturally appropriate health education on COVID-19. Qualitative interviews highlighted specific barriers and facilitators to CHW organizational integration and included lack of communication between health care workers at all levels, inexperience of supervisors supporting CHWs, supervisors’ competing demands and being stretched thin, varying levels of organizational readiness with onboarding CHWs, and an unclear definition of the CHW role on health care teams.

Engage. CHWs played a key role in connecting individuals to health care and social services, with a total of 1,100,147 referrals made over 3 years. In addition, CHWs reached over 20.7 million community members with messaging and education over the 3-year CCR project period. Further, 743 partnerships were established to facilitate CHW efforts.

Conclusions and Implications

CCR was a first-of-its-kind program that provided national funding for CHW-led programs and provided implementation and evaluation technical assistance. The results of the national evaluation reaffirm the promise of the CHW workforce in advancing health equity. The values, goals, and approach of the CHW workforce are well-aligned with the social work profession. Implications of the CCR national evaluation suggest a strong potential for partnership with social work practitioners, the need for more reliable funding sources for CHWs, and a better understanding of both the role and the value of CHWs at the healthcare organization policy level.