It's personal: Community health workers discuss intersections between their work and personal health behavior changes

Often members of vulnerable communities themselves, Community Health Workers may live in similar environments, purchase and prepare similar foods, live similar lifestyles and face comparable health disparities and risks as their neighbors. This can make CHWs' work very personal. For the NHLBI Strategic Champions Demonstration Project, the Central Massachusetts Area Health Education Center and its partners, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers and Boston Public Health Commission, trained and supported 67 CHWs to instruct hundreds of hours of heart health education in their Latino and African-American communities. Two other significant outcomes were health behavior changes among the CHWs themselves, and widespread CHW dissemination of the training information among their family and friends. After training, 100% of CHWs said they would/most likely would change health habits; 96% said they would/most likely would share training information with family; and 96% said they would/most likely would share training information with friends. After ninety days, 87% of CHW respondents had changed their own health habits; 100% had shared information with family; and 93% had shared information with friends. In the proposed session, CHWs and the project trainer will discuss the project content and experiences that motivated CHWs' health behavior changes, effecting positive change for themselves, families and friends. Lessons learned may assist project planners, CHWs and their trainers and supervisors to plan and implement ways to maximize CHWs' positive influence not only in their jobs, but also in their personal lives and networks inside of vulnerable populations or communities.