Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: 210-567-2579
E-mail: sansom@uthscsa.edu

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The Regional Center for Health Workforce Studies at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has produced the first national study of an emerging health workforce — community health workers.

The study, now on the Web site of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), was conducted in all 50 states over two years under a contract with HRSA’s Bureau of Health Professions, Evaluation and Analysis Branch.

The study:
• Chronicles the involvement of community health workers in the delivery of health services
• Summarizes the legislative process relative to their integration in the U.S. health care system
• Provides national and state estimates regarding the number of community health workers
• Describes the skills that employers require for hiring community health workers, including the training they need, and certification programs and career opportunities available to them.

Texas first state to offer certification

Antonio Furino, Ph.D., is principal investigator of the national study about community health workers.

“It is important to note that Texas is the first state in the country offering certification to community health workers, and its example is being followed by several other states,” said study principal investigator Antonio Furino, Ph.D., professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Health Science Center and associate director of the Regional Center for Health Workforce Studies. Community health workers, who have long served communities on a grassroots level, are becoming part of deliberate strategies for increasing access and delivering cost-effective and culturally sensitive care to the underserved, he said.

Growing needs for health care resources
A projected 87 million aging Baby Boomers will require health care resources by 2050, a number greater than the entire U.S. population of 1900. Demographic diversity is fueling population growth that by 2050 is projected to be 7 percent among non-Hispanic whites, 71 percent among African Americans, 188 percent among Hispanics and 213 percent among Asians.

“The scope and speed of the population growth will magnify the problem of our health care system, which is excellent in clinical sophistication but unable to effectively reach all who need care,” Dr. Furino said.

Community health workers are lay members of communities who work either for pay or as volunteers in association with local health care systems in both urban and rural environments and usually share place of residence, socio-economic status and life experiences with the community members they serve.

The workers have been identified by many titles such as community health advisers, community health advocates, promotores(as) and outreach educators. They offer transportation and culturally appropriate health care information and education, assist people in receiving the care they need, give informal counseling, and provide some direct services, such as first aid and blood pressure screening.

Study surveys indicated there were 86,000 community health workers in 2000 and 121,206 by 2005, a 41 percent increase. “Providers, health institutions and policy makers want to utilize this community-based resource, but until now there was not sufficient information to identify them, know where they could be recruited and how to utilize them for extending the clinical reach of medical teams,” Dr. Furino said. “This is a group of people who are very important to America.”

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $536 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $14.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.