Community Health Advocates

Roles of the Community Health Advocates

The Community Health Advocate fills a number of interrelated roles:

• Planner—suggest, develop, and improve outreach initiatives
• Interpreter—translate or explain unfamiliar terminology for community members and health care providers
• Recruiter—bring in new CHA candidates and community resources
• Advisor—offer health-related advice and information to members of the community
• Implementer—teach classes, give rides to doctor's offices, deliver medicine or pick up prescriptions, check on the homebound and the elderly
• Reporter—discover and document community health issues
• Publicist—publicize health-related events like health fairs and disease screenings to the community
• Evaluator—estimate the effectiveness of programs, measure community response to initiatives
• Liaison—bring together community organizations like churches, advocacy programs, free clinics, shelters, as well as local businesses to participate in CHA initiatives

Since each CHA brings his or her own set of particular strengths to the program, not every advocate will fill every role. Some advocates will be natural public speakers, for instance. They may be more comfortable leading a discussion about a disease. Another advocate may have a gift for planning and organization, in which case he may be asked to put together a food drive for a local church. Each advocate will be asked to do an honest self-assessment of his or her strengths, interests, and abilities, and will be matched with tasks for which he or she is best suited.

A useful way to think of the work encompassed by the various roles of the CHA is in the acronym AIM, which stands for Advocate, Inform, and Motivate. In general, everything a CHA might do in that capacity is in some way advocating for community health, informing people about diseases or disparities in health, or motivating community members to take action to become healthier.