Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved

Articles:

Workforce Development

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Poor Men and Public Policy: Broken Promises, Systems and Families
Georgia Power College of Public Health Seminar - Presented by: Henrie M. Treadwell, Ph.D.

Unity 2005 Conference--Community Health Workers: Responding to Challenging Times
From March 30 through April 1, 2005, The Center for Sustainable Health Outreach held a conference to educate and exchange information on the challenges faced by community health workers as they strive to meet the demands of a changing health care system and increasingly diverse population.

Community Health Workers: Bridging the Access Gap for Underserved Rural Populations
As the participants in several initiatives in North Carolina will attest, rural populations in the United States also can benefit greatly from community health worker programs. Those interested in rural health issues understand well that health professionals in rural areas are spread too thin to address all of the serious health outreach needs of rural populations. Community health workers are an effective way to bridge the access and information gaps that plague our poorer rural communities.

U.S. Healthcare Professions Separate and Unequal
WASHINGTON, September 20, 2004—A lack of diversity among healthcare professionals is placing the health of at least one-third of the nation at risk. This fact was among findings announced today by the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce in its report, Missing Persons: Minorities in the Health Professions.

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health: Making a Positive Impact
This report provides an overview of community-campus partnerships, service-learning initiatives, and workforce diversity efforts involving Community Voices programs. There are examples of notable community-campus partnership models within Community Voices programs as well as findings regarding the partnerships. The report concludes with lessons learned about a variety of community-campus partnerships that other communities and institutions can employ in forging and fortifying their own relationships.

Community Voices: Speaking Out
Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved is a group of national, community-based demonstration projects seeking to develop programs that actually improve the accessibility of people to quality health care, based on real-life demonstrations of what does and can work.We believe that practical examples of service models that reach people are better guides for public and private policy decision-makers than solutions that have not been tested on the ground in communities where real people live, work and seek full service health care that includes oral health care, mental health and substance abuse treatment.We have learned that people have needs for non-fragmented care and that our current system of care does not adequately serve the poor and underinsured. As a result, care for the uninsured and underserved is viewed as a luxury and a privilege rather than as a right.We want to help change this viewpoint, which is a reality in the lives of too many in our nation.

Community Health Workers and Community Voices: Promoting Good Health
(December 2003) Reaching out into homes and into the community to promote healing and wellness as an integral part of practice is as old as health care. But this practice is threatened.

Community Voices Miami Prepares the Health Workforce of the Future
Community Voices Miami sees their work as a natural bridge between the "field" and the university. One example of this fit is the Community Health Outreach Worker model. These outreach workers serve in the roles of "natural helpers, natural researchers, and as advocates for their communities," helping the patients they serve navigate the health care system. Community Voices Miami is working with communities to help provide training for these individuals, and to connect them to educational opportunities that capitalize on their experience, knowledge and interest.

Preparing the Health Workforce of the Future: Community Voices Service-Learning Partnerships
Emphasizing community-based preventive care, community partnerships and policy change, Community Voices sites provide an ideal setting for service-learning, in which college and university students provide community service combined with reflection and explicit learning objectives as part of their formal education. Through such service-learning experiences, health professional students can gain key experience in such areas as cultural competency, interdisciplinary collaboration, and prevention. It is imperative that the health professionals that serve our nation's communities truly understand their needs and assets.

FirstHealth Prepares the Health Workforce of the Future
FirstHealth of the Carolinas is a partner in developing the Health Academy in collaboration with the local community college and school district. The project started in the Fall of 2002, working with juniors and seniors in high school to encourage them to enroll in math and science classes. The students are linked to a mentor at FirstHealth, and are offered the chance to earn college credits at the community college if their high school courses are completed. Students can take courses in EMT Basic skills, anatomy and physiology, and medical terminology. The program was initiated by the community college and involves the local school district and FirstHealth.

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Related Policy Briefs

Public Housing Policies that Exclude Ex-Offenders: A House Divided

Community Health Workers and Community Voices: Promoting Good Health

Community Voices: Lessons for National Health Policy

More Than A Market: Making Sense of Health Care Systems

Workers Without Health Insurance: Who Are They and How Can Policy Reach Them

(copy) Community Health Workers: Bridging the Access Gap for Underserved Rural Populations

Missing Persons: Minorities in the Health Professions

Community Voices: Speaking Out

Community Health Workers: Bridging the Access Gap for Underserved Rural Populations

Unity 2005 Conference: "Community Health Workers: Responding to Challenging Times"

Community Campus Partnerships for Health: Linking Scholarship and Communities

Healthcare in a Multicultural Society

Related Communities

Community Voices Miami

FirstHealth Community Voices

Related Web Sites

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Policy Briefs:

State-funded Rehabilitation Services for the Incarcerated: Polls say yes
An overwhelming majority in both Washington, DC and statewide in Georgia would support a policy to make state-funded rehabilitation services available to incarcerated people both while they are in prison and after they have been released, a pair of polls conducted by Zogby International on behalf of Community Voices at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) shows:

Community Voices/Zogby Poll shows Strong Support for Prisoner Rehabilitation Services

Attitudes Toward and Support for Services to Successfully Reintegrate People with Felony Convictions Back into Society: A Survey of Residents of Washington, DC and Georgia

Additional Policy Brief Overviews:

Healthcare and Incarceration: Medicaid Termination and Suspension

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Feeling the Strain: The Impact of Stress on the Health of African-American Men
The mortality rate for African-American men is 1.3 times that of White men, 1.7 times that of AmericanIndian/Alaska Native men, 1.8 times that of Hispanic men, and 2.4 times that of Asian or Pacific Islander men.
Publication Date:8/3/2009
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Oral Health: Who Cares? Who Should Care?
In the United States, health systems, practices, policies and payment mechanisms continue to differentiate between physical health and oral health. But within the human body, no such distinction exists. An infected tooth is no different than strep throat or any other threat to physical well-being. Yet far too many people –across the nation and in our own State of Georgia – the crying need for oral health care, both to prevent illness and treat disease, goes unanswered (Download Overview).
Publication Date:3/17/2007

Public Housing Policies that Exclude Ex-Offenders: A House Divided
Ex-offenders can be excluded from public housing either by operation of law or by administrative decision-making-giving advocates and policymakers more than one avenue for addressing current barriers to housing. The best option, of course, is to amend federal law and make the statutory framework for administrative decisions more fair, humane, and rational. But even within the current statutory framework, there is room to modify harsh and arbitrary administrative policies and practices (Download Overview).
Publication Date:3/16/2007

Felony Convictions and Access to Healthcare: Equal Opportunity for Life and Liberty?
The deliberate disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons is America’s dirty little secret. Disenfranchisement is an express, direct attack on the democratic process, one that is traditionally motivated by racism and which currently disproportionately impacts African Americans. The number of citizens deliberately disenfranchised is huge and rapidly expanding – 4.7 million Americans were ineligible to vote in 2000; by 2004 that number had risen to 5.3 million and is still rising (Download Overview).
Publication Date:3/15/2007

Examining the Needs of The Incarcerated
Community Voices convened a meeting of thirty-three key community stakeholders in Georgia. The goal was to identify challenges to reentry pathways and to foster reentry projects in the state of Georgia (Download Overview).
Publication Date:2/28/2007

State-funded Rehabilitation Services for the Incarcerated: Polls say yes
An overwhelming majority in both Washington, DC and statewide in Georgia would support a policy to make state-funded rehabilitation services available to incarcerated people both while they are in prison and after they have been released, a pair of polls conducted by Zogby International on behalf of Community Voices at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) shows.
Publication Date:2/15/2007

Prison Health and the Health of the Public: Ties that Bind
Untreated or overlooked illnesses in a prison population can expose whole communities to the risk of infection from a contagious disease. With nearly 2.2 million men and women incarcerated in prisons and jails in the United States, many suffer with HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, diabetes, as well as chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma. Even more suffer from undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. Many correlate the catastrophic rise of HIV cases among African American women with the return of HIV positive men after their release from prison. Upon reentry, ex-offenders often return to their low-income communities, cities, towns and neighborhoods with the fewest resources. The effect is to exacerbate health disparities already present while the unmet health needs of people in jails and prisons can threaten the well-being of their families, communities and society as a whole.
In order to address the health care concerns of the general population, it is first necessary to realize that there is a direct tie between prison health and the health of the public (Download Overview).
Publication Date:1/1/2007

Where are the men?
The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on African American Men and Their Children and Families (Download Overview).
Publication Date:8/1/2006

Healthy Children in Healthy Families: The Role and Power of School-based Health
School-based Health Centers (SBHCs) are an innovative tool used by Community Voices to fill health care service gaps and extend access to quality health care. These centers not only preserve the good health of the children that they serve, but also reduce absenteeism and emergency room use.
Publication Date:5/1/2005
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A Man's Dilemma: Healthcare of Men Across America
A DISPARITIES REPORT. Men of color and poor men continue to experience disparities in health status and in access to quality health care. This document examines the broader issue of access to care, including insurance coverage.
Publication Date:11/1/2004

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Most Requested Policy Briefs

Healthy Children in Healthy Families: The Role and Power of School-based Health
School-based Health Centers (SBHCs) are an innovative tool used by Community Voices to fill health care service gaps and extend access to quality health care. These centers not only preserve the good health of the children that they serve, but also reduce absenteeism and emergency room use.
Publication Date:5/1/2005

Community-Based Health Coverage Programs: Models and Lessons
What follows are profiles of coverage programs that are connected to the Community Voices initiative. The programs described in this report are not the only community-based coverage programs in the U.S. — in fact, numerous programs have emerged around the country — but this collection represents a range of up-to-date models. They vary in target population, benefit package, vehicle for coverage, size, cost, financing mechanism, lead agency, and stage of development. This policy brief is available by download only.
Publication Date:4/15/2004

Community Voices: Lessons for National Health Policy
Several strong forces are combining to push responsibility for improving access to health care for vulnerable populations onto local communities. Some communities, including the Community Voices sites, have been developing innovative ways to meet the growing challenges they face. These local efforts also serve as "learning laboratories;" the more successful strategies provide models for larger-scale state or federal reforms. This brief highlights some of these promising approaches.
Publication Date:4/15/2004