Give 4 Garnet 2023

Over the past two years, the Center for Community Health Alignment (CCHA) and Core for Applied Research and Engagement (CARE) trained Community Health Workers (CHWs) as community researchers to conduct research to better understand how to promote sustainable health improvement through meaningful engagement and equitable decision-making with communities.

“We soon realized that progress moves at the speed of trust…and a huge barrier to revitalizing communities is trust. For many years, cities and government structures and [outside] institutions did to the community and not with the community.”

~Community Leader

The CHW Researchers partnered with local organizations to conduct interviews and community “open mic” conversations in Spartanburg, North Columbia, Darlington County, and Orangeburg County. They then worked with CARE and CCHA to analyze the data and held community data sharing events to report the findings back to the communities  that participated. 

A broad overview of what they found emphasized the importance of building trust with communities.

CHWs are frontline public health workers with shared, lived experience with the communities they serve. They have the capacity and experience to connect communities and health leaders and researchers, and live and work in towns and cities across South Carolina.

CCHA and CARE would like to expand on the findings of this project, and train and promote more CHW Researchers in South Carolina to continue informing and enabling improved health through building trust between communities, researchers, and health leaders. We will create a 2-track CHW Researcher Training program, to build CHWs’ skills in research methods, and for researchers and organizational leaders who desire to engage with communities in a more meaningful and equitable way. We will also develop a cohort of CHW Researchers who are trained and experienced in engaging communities and researchers in equitable research and decision-making. 

Our goal is to raise funds to pilot the training curricula, provide stipends to CHW Research trainees, and develop the structure for the CHW Researcher Cohort.