In their own words: CHWs share what supports they need to engage communities in heart health practices

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are increasingly relied upon to provide effective health education and become frontline leaders in addressing social, cultural and environmental disadvantages that lead to health disparities. Nine organizations funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, are grappling with how to build the capacity of CHWs to implement community based heart health programs. These organizations are diverse in the populations they serve (Hispanic/Latino, African-American, Filipino and Native American), their organization types (e.g. CHW network, housing authority, community organization, University), and project approaches suitable for their communities (e.g. length and content of training, learning circles, online training). Collectively they are honing best practices for building CHW capacity, leadership development, and testing innovative strategies to educate vulnerable populations within and outside of the formal healthcare system. We propose a dynamic, interactive event with CHWs (nine are authors here) describing ‘what it takes' to translate training into community heart health outcomes, their greatest challenges, and promising strategies to overcome them. We will augment these first-person narratives with process and outcome evaluation data collected over the course of 15 months (pre, post, 30 days, 3 months, and 6 months) which shows improvements in knowledge, confidence, and health behavior among CHWs and community members. We will synthesize the promising approaches about capacity building and community education that could be replicated elsewhere. Our diversity in approaches and experiences enables us to fill an entire session, host a roundtable, or conduct one oral presentation, and are willing to fulfill any of these roles.