Healthy Families Brooklyn Working with Health Adv

Authors: Necole Brown Nicole A Vaughn Alison J Lin Ruth Browne Marilyn White Paul Smith

Publish Date: 2011/03/12

Volume: 36, Issue: 5, Pages: 864-873

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Abstract

Decreasing health disparities must increase access to care improve health education and ease navigating the health care system Community Health Workers CHW take on these tasks in professional and culturally competent manners The Healthy Families Brooklyn HFB Program serves residents in two public housing developments in Brooklyn NY Healthy Families Advocates HFA a type of CHW are at the core of HFB Curriculum development for training of and services provided by the 10 HFA over 19 months are described Pre and post knowledge assessments of HFAs are analyzed Data from HFA surveys regarding training were analyzed using grounded theory methods HFA served 172 unique clients at 222 visits Services offered include accessing public benefits health education and connection to hospitals There was a significant increase between pre and post assessment knowledge scores P  001 Taking temperature building trust and communicating care and connection emerged as themes related to interpersonal skills used by the HFA The HFA are committed to moving clients forward in their health knowledge and behaviors Themes from the HFA survey closely mirrored the HFA training curriculum Lessons learned pertaining to training needs data collection and supervision are explored The HFB program is a model way of working in communities in New York City and expansion with faithbased groups and other housing development communities is underway Engaging communities to improve access screening prevention and treatment is paramount to the nation’s health and the success of the 2010 Affordable Care Act CHW’s role in this mission is integralWe would like to thank the Health Advocates for their continued participation in improving the health of their clients We thank our community partners for their participation and support We also thank John Wren for his invaluable contributions We are deeply grateful to the Altus One Fund for supporting this work Finally we would like to thank John Rich MD MPH for his comments on this manuscript Healthy Families Brooklyn is funded by Altus One Fund

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