Advocacy

Chicago CHW / Promotor

Survey & Mapping Project

Overview

Community health workers and promotores de salud (CHWs) are vital links between communities and the health care system. Supporting CHWs and strengthening and expanding these programs will help improve community health. Several organizations are interested in growing the capacity of Chicago's CHW programs but need baseline information to focus these efforts.

The Chicago CHW/Promotor Survey and Mapping Project is a collaborative effort to collect information about Chicago's community health workers and promotores de salud.

The Project's goal is to identify and map current CHW and promotor de salud programs in Chicago, including:

Where services are provided
What topics are covered
What type of services are being offered

CHWs, promotores and program supervisors will also be surveyed about program sustainability, including funding sources, available training, and what they need to reach their communities.

Maps

From this information, maps will be created to:

Show areas in Chicago that may benefit from more CHW programs
Analyze availability of CHW program compared to health status and social determinants of health (e.g., poverty, education, etc.)

Benefit to Communities

These data will be available to community organizations to:

Support grant proposals to establish and/or expand CHW and promotor programs
Create training opportunities
Develop policy recommendations

With a more complete list of CHWs and promotores, agencies will be able to disseminate health information to community residents on topics such as emergency preparedness, communicable diseases (influenza, TB, etc.), immunizations, healthy behaviors, and available resources. Communities will also know that their concerns are being communicated back to agencies through the CHWs and promotores.

Pilot Community Area: Rogers Park

Rogers Park was selected as the pilot community area to test the CHW/Promotor Survey & Mapping Project's methodology to inventory CHW/Promotor resources. Local organizations, public officials, and communication outlets were invited to join this effort, and findings from the pilot were made available to local organizations to strengthen and promote current resources. These findings will also be used to assure effectiveness of the Project's methods when the CHW/Promotor Survey & Mapping Project is conducted citywide.

Please contact us for more information, or to become involved in efforts to expand the survey to other neighborhoods.

Support for a Community-Based Analysis of Rogers Park Pilot Data comes from the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC).