Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities (CCR) National Evaluation Team

Arizona State University’s Office of Community Health Engagement and Resiliency (OCHER) provides research and evaluation expertise as lead members of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities (CCR) National Evaluation Team (hyperlink to CDC CCR page: https://www.cdc.gov/covid-community-health-workers/index.html).

The purpose of this CDC initiative is to generate and analyze high-quality data and findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of different approaches to building public health infrastructure and evaluating public health responses with Community Health Workers (CHWs)/Community Health Representatives (CHRs)/promotores.

CHWs/CHRs/promotores are vital frontline public health personnel. They connect health and social service providers with minoritized and historically excluded communities that experience health inequities and disparities. Using culturally acceptable and responsive evaluation methods, ASU's OCHER monitors implementation, informs program improvement, and assesses overall reach and outcomes of the CDC’s CCR initiative. Our team also provides site-specific support through evaluation training and technical assistance activities for CDC-funded capacity building, implementation ready, and demonstration sites (hyperlink to 2109 site on CCR recipients: https://www.cdc.gov/covid-community-health-workers/ccr-recipients.html).

Further, ASU's OCHER is engaging with CDC, partners, and 2109 sites to design and conduct five rigorous, special studies of the national initiative. The overarching goal of these national studies is to contribute to: a) program quality improvement efforts; b) practice-based evidence; c) lessons learned to support replication and scaling up of program strategies, including to advance the CHW/CHR/promotores workforce; and, d) informing future policy, programming, and funding opportunities to build on the success of the CCR initiative.