The CHW Story
Since the start of the pandemic five years ago, a dedicated team of 20 community health workers (CHWs) has served the most vulnerable communities in Western Kenya. The informal settlements where they work present incredibly challenging living conditions: inadequate sanitation, lack of running water, and limited access to electricity. Residents cook over charcoal fires and live in densely packed, ramshackle huts constructed from scrap wood and tin, held together with tenpenny nails. This impoverished environment fosters severe health challenges.
Regular healthcare, though, is scarce in these communities. Medical professionals are few, and their services are often unaffordable. Tragically, many residents are born and die without ever seeing a doctor. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects a shortfall of 11 million health workers by 2030, with low-income countries bearing the brunt, dashing hopes for a near-term increase in the number of doctors. Communities, like the one in Western Kenya, have little hope for improved medical care anytime soon.
However, solutions exist, and efforts are underway to implement them. While the WHO projects a worsening shortage of doctors in low-resource countries, it suggests that CHWs can help bridge this gap by providing essential health services and linking communities to the formal healthcare system. Those 20 CHWs serving settlements in Western Kenya, for instance, provide clinical services and training programs to more than 9,000 people every month. The challenge lies in training a sufficient number of CHWs to address the vast community needs.
Saving CHW Deployment Costs
While WiRED’s CHW curriculum and CME are free, communities are often reluctant to establish CHW programs due to the recurring costs of deployment: management, CHW stipends, supplies, and other operational expenses. WiRED provides the educational elements of a CHW program but cannot fund deployment, which is the responsibility of each community. Recognizing that operational costs can discourage CHW programs in low-income communities, WiRED has developed several strategies to make deployment more budget-friendly:
Health Screening Clinics (HSCs) focus on early disease detection and prevention. They allow CHWs to run periodic, high-impact programs instead of requiring daily community deployment. By detecting diseases before symptoms appear, HSCs enable earlier, more effective treatment and improve recovery rates. Typically operating once or twice a month at various locations, these clinics allow several CHWs to screen hundreds of individuals and refer those requiring more advanced care. WiRED offers detailed blueprints for establishing and running HSCs to maximize community health benefits while minimizing deployment costs.- Resident Health Worker (RHW) programs: RHW programs enable businesses, schools, public agencies, and others to have their employees trained with the same curriculum used by CHW teams. RHWs provide fellow employees basic clinical services, conduct health surveillance, and educate colleagues on topics like disease prevention, sanitation, and healthy practices. CHWs form teams that deploy into the community to provide clinical services and health training, while RHWs integrate back into the workplace where they function as regular employees, providing health support when needed. While RHWs don’t receive stipends for their health work as do CHWs, they may receive a small monthly bonus from employers. This program enriches workplaces (schools and businesses) by integrating RHW paraprofessionals into the workforce. Workplaces served by RHWs improve employee health and reduce absenteeism, a significant cost to business. Schools served by RHWs are better able to address student health concerns, provide school-wide training for emerging diseases, and regularly observe the student population for signs of illness (health surveillance). Further, RHW can educate parents about current health issues, thus expanding the capacity to reach a larger portion of the community with valuable health information.
WiRED’s Community Health Worker Training
After several years of field testing, WiRED International has released a cost-free, expertly designed program to train CHW paraprofessionals, aiming to boost their positive impact on community health in low-resource settings. Leveraging nearly two decades of experience delivering health education in underserved environments, WiRED has tailored this CHW training program for individuals in regions where access to medical care, communication, and technical resources is severely limited.
This training package empowers community and health leaders anywhere to train CHWs using a tested, WHO-compliant curriculum developed and peer-reviewed by medical experts. The program requires no registration and can be quickly downloaded to phones and tablets for offline use. WiRED, whose longstanding mission has been to improve health training in low-income environments, offers free guidance to communities preparing for this CHW training.
Students participate in a five-week classroom course, taught by local medical professionals, using WiRED’s interactive curriculum modules. The Basic Training Course covers anatomy and physiology, infectious and non-communicable diseases, patient assessment, first aid and critical care, health communication, and health surveillance. Certification requires students to pass an online final exam monitored in real-time by observers in the United States.
In addition to the basic training program, and following the WHO’s directives for continuing medical education (CME), WiRED offers a free online CME program with over 400 health and medical training modules. These resources enable CHWs to retain their knowledge and develop new skills. CHWs can browse the library, download and study the material, then take a final exam at the end of each module. Their scores are recorded in WiRED’s online CME tracker, provided to each CHW in a password-protected account. To maintain certification, CHWs must earn 50 CME credits annually.
