The Community-Based Health Workforce in Public Health and Health Care Delivery.

CONTEXT: The "community-based workforce" is an umbrella term used by a workgroup of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leaders to characterize a variety of job titles and descriptions for positions in the public health, health care delivery, and human service sectors across local communities. APPROACH: Definitions, expectations of the scope of work, and funding opportunities for this workforce vary. To address some of these challenges, a workgroup of HHS agencies met to define the roles of this workforce and identify existing opportunities for training, career advancement, and compensation. DISCUSSION: The community-based workforce has demonstrated success in improving poor health outcomes and addressing the social determinants of health for decades. However, descriptions of this workforce, expectations of their roles, and funding opportunities vary. The HHS workgroup identified that comprehensive approaches are needed within HHS and via public health sectors to meet these challenges and opportunities. CONCLUSION: Using the common term "community-based workforce" across HHS can encourage alignment and collaboration. As the environment for this public health and health care community-based workforce shifts, it will be important to understand the value and opportunities available to ensure long-term sustainability for this workforce to continue to advance health equity.

Preparing a Health Literate Workforce: The Role of Area Health Education Centers.

Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) play a vital role in creating health literate organizations. In this report, we highlight the work of three AHECs. The Massachusetts AHEC trains oral language healthcare interpreters who can effectively convey complex medical information to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP). The University of Kentucky AHEC trains providers to use the Universal Precautions Health Literacy Toolkit. Finally, the Wisconsin AHEC prepares community health workers (CHWs) to play a vital role in making it easy for people to navigate the healthcare system. These three AHECs serve as models of health literacy's diffusion.