Community Health Worker

A half-day event March 31 from 11:30 AM – 3:30 PM ET, the 2021 Asthma Convening will explore best practices and emerging issues in comprehensive asthma programming as well as policy considerations for asthma advocates in 2021 and beyond. This virtual event is an opportunity to learn more about GHHI's National Initiative for Asthma Reimbursement, network with asthma programs operating across the country, and explore opportunities to take your program to the next level.

In light of the many changes that the coronavirus pandemic is creating, on April 3, 2020, RAMP hosted a webinar, Virtual Asthma Home Visits to learn more about virtual asthma home visits, share resources, and try to solve challenges related to implementation.

In any given classroom, at least two or three students are likely to have asthma. Clearing the Air: An Asthma Toolkit for Healthy Schools is a new toolkit containing sample policy language, best practices, and curated resources & tools to help schools create an asthma-friendly environment. This is a project of the MA Asthma Action Partnership, Health Resources in Action, and the MA DPH’s Asthma Prevention and Control Program.

Keeping Families Healthy (KFH) is an enriched medical home service that utilizes community health worker (CHW) home visitation to help “at risk” families achieve self-sufficiency in navigating the health care system and adhering to recommended clinical care.

Building Systems to Sustain Home-Based Asthma Services is a new eLearning and technical assistance platform designed to equip staff in public health agencies, state asthma-control programs, state Medicaid agencies, and other housing and health organizations with information about how to build the systems, infrastructure, and financing to put home-based asthma services in place in their own states, communities, or regions.

The Healthy Home Evaluator (HHE) is a certification for home performance and energy efficiency professionals. The HHE was developed in partnership with the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI). An HHE assesses home-based environmental health and safety hazards and provides a prioritized list of recommendations to address those hazards for the homeowner.

An infographic from Home Clean Expert that visually explains the symptoms, triggers and treatments of childhood asthma.

This spring the Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) and Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) will introduce the Healthy Home Evaluator (HHE) credential to the nation's home performance, weatherization and healthy housing workforce, with the goal of breaking the link between unhealthy housing and unhealthy families through home performance interventions.

This literature review highlights approaches used among CHW interventions that demonstrated effectiveness in terms of improving service quality, cost-savings, and/or improving health and quality of life outcomes. As CHW interventions are gaining greater recognition as a promising element of healthcare reform, the research summarized is hoped to shine a light on promising practices for implementation in the state of Maine. Given limited research, important elements for replication and the range of outcomes that may be expected are only starting to emerge. Some mixed findings exist that further research by the larger field of researchers may eventually help to illuminate. For example, the central importance of home visiting and other face-to-face interactions was emphasized in the ICER 2013 Report, specifically that 75% of successful CHW models they reviewed along with their expert review team came to consensus on the importance of home visiting. However this is not found consistently to be imperative across subsequent studies for all conditions. With such caveats in mind, the literature does point to models that can be drawn upon that may be relevant for advancing the Maine Community Health Worker Initiative and the pilot CHW programs the Initiative supports.

Join the US EPA in the national effort to raise asthma awareness during Asthma Awareness Month. Host activities to educate people in your community about comprehensive asthma management. Download EPA’s Asthma Awareness Month Event Planning Kit featuring new ideas for outreach and awareness activities, tips for working with the media, success stories, and much more.