Community Health Workers are frontline public health workers who are trusted members or have a deep understanding of the communities they serve. They use their understanding of the people and cultures across Arizona to improve health, address social issues that can result in better health outcomes, reduce costs of care, and make the local health system more responsive to the needs of each community.
Certification of Community Health Workers contributes to further professionalization and sustainability of the workforce and can help facilitate reimbursement of services they deliver.
It took several years to build the statutory and administrative pathway to facilitate certification of community health workers – and we’re finally there. ADHS published the final rules a few weeks ago and they opened the online certification application a couple weeks ago.
Arizona’s Community Health Workers now can apply for voluntary certification once they establish they meet the standards and have successfully completed an approved training program.
ADHS is using a federal grant to temporarily bring the certification fee down to $1, but that will end when the grant funding ends. Applications are fully electronic and available as of today at azhealth.gov/CHW.
Report: Building Community Health Workers into the Continuum of Care
How to Get Your CHW Training Program Certified
The Tumblers Click: Community Health Workers Entering Arizona’s Care Network at Scale
