An Innovative Community Health Worker Training Program for Delta Mississippi: Promoting Health and Reducing Health-related Cost

National research indicates Mississippi is last, or next to last, in state rankings regarding health outcomes, health system performance and the potential for children to live long, healthy lives. The practices of applying the failed intervention strategies and policies over and over are not making a dent in the problem. In fact, some health outcomes are even becoming worse in spite of investment of millions of state/federal dollars over the past ten years. Public and private partnership was formed in 2009 to establish a global community health worker program that would operate as a component of an integrated primary health care system for rural Mississippi. As a component of this system, health houses staffed with community health workers (they are recruited and trained for 600 hours and are certified by an accredited public health program) are contributing to their communities' positive health outcomes. The community health worker undergo competency-based training that include topics such as community health concept to understanding social determinants of health to communicable/non-communicable diseases, health promotion/disease prevention and commuter applications combined with a month-long “hand on” fieldwork. Recognized and incorporated into the Pan American World Health Organization's Regional Technician Training Program, this community health work program has the potential to become a standard training program for the Delta Region's rural communities. This presentation will explain various components of this CHW training program and its unique features. It will also explain its operation within an integrated primary health care system that can promote health and reduce cost.