Health Promotion in the Community: Impact of Faith-Based Lay Health Educators in Urban Neighborhoods

Promoting wellness and providing reliable health information in the community present serious challenges. Lay health educators, also known as community health workers, may offer a cost-effective solution to such challenges. This is a retrospective observational study of graduates from the Lay Health Educator Program (LHEP) at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center from 2013 to 2014. Students were enrolled from the surrounding community congregations and from the hospital's accredited clinical pastoral education program. There were 50 events implemented by the lay health educators during the 2014-2015 time period, reaching a total of 2004 individuals. The mean time from date of graduation from the LHEP to implementation of their first health promotional event was 196 ± 76 days. A significant number of lay health educators implemented events within the first year after completing their training. Ongoing monitoring of their community activity and the clinical impact of their efforts should be a priority for future studies.