Community Health Worker Activities in Public Health Programs to Prevent Violence: Coding Roles and Scope

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Community Health
• Violence Prevention

Background:

• Violence is a significant public health concern in the U.S. with profound health consequences.
• Community Health Workers (CHWs) are essential frontline workers deeply integrated within communities.
• Understanding CHW roles in violence prevention is crucial for enhancing public health strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze recent Community Health Worker (CHW) activities in public health violence prevention programs.
• To inform the development of future violence prevention initiatives and research directions.
• To examine the intersection of CHW roles and violence prevention literature.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature search identified over 300 documents from 2010-2020.
• A coding scheme was iteratively developed and applied to analyze CHW activities within identified programs.
• Twenty public health violence prevention programs featuring CHW activities were analyzed.

Main Results:

• CHWs were involved in 20 identified violence prevention programs, most frequently addressing community, youth, and family violence.
• On average, CHWs performed 8 out of 10 core public health roles within these programs.
• Only 6 programs reported CHW activities focused on upstream, structural determinants of health inequities.

Conclusions:

• Community Health Workers (CHWs) are actively engaged in multiple core roles within violence prevention programs.
• CHWs demonstrate significant potential in addressing diverse forms of violence through public health interventions.
• There is a need to expand CHW-focused strategies to address the upstream and structural drivers of violence and health inequities.