Community Health Worker Common Indicator Summit 2015

Community Health Workers (CHWs) have made important contributions to communities and health and social service systems in the US for decades. Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), interest in the CHW model has grown. However, policy makers and health system leaders are asking for more systematic study to achieve a strong evidence base before making long-term investments in the CHW workforce. This document summarizes the steps taken at the recent CHW Common Indicators Summit held in Portland, OR, on October 2-3, 2015. Building on work conducted by the Michigan Community Health Worker Alliance (MiCHWA), and under the auspices of the Oregon CHW Consortium, staff from the Multnomah County Community Capacitation Center (CCC) organized the two-day Summit to make progress on identifying a set of common process and outcome evaluation indicators that can be used by CHW programs around the US, and potentially around the world. The 16 CHWs, researchers, evaluators and program staff from five states who participated in the Summit brought both substantial experience measuring the process and outcomes of CHW programs, and new and fresh perspectives to the work. Participants reviewed MiCHWA’s common indicators work as well as CHW program and evaluation work from their states and engaged in processes leading to consensus on the following proposed list of process and outcome indicators.

Download the Executive Summary of the Proceedings