Community Healthcare Workers: Story Angles and Ideas

Spotlight: Who are the underserved in your community and how are CHWs supporting them in these times of change? 

Spotlight a specific CHW project active in your community and the community-driven problem workers are trying to solve. The connection to the audience can be geographic (e.g. local safe sex organization handing out contraceptives, with emphasis on the local element) or thematic (e.g. a national media company with a young female audience could cover the same organization, but with greater focus on a broader mission.)

This piece can identify issues of special relevance to the audience and demonstrate how CHWs can be mobilized to meet those needs, drawing on research from Orb Media.

Investigation: What could CHWs do with X% of your community’s police budgets?

Many communities in the US (and around the world) are having serious conversations about the role of police departments—and the budgets allocated to those departments. This piece could examine how diverting resources from the police to CHW programs could improve health and quality of life in your audience’s communities, using research from Orb Media as supporting evidence. 

The story could also examine how certain roles and functions could be reassigned from police officers to CHWs (ex. responding to mental health situations), and how this could deliver economic benefits for community members by providing meaningful, well-compensated employment.

List: How could CHW programs benefit your community/audience? 

After establishing the effectiveness of CHWs in addressing various public health issues (as covered in research by Orb Media), this story could outline 3-5 hypothetical uses of CHWs in contexts relevant to the interests of your target audience (e.g. drugs, early childhood development; etc).

A panel of experts could be consulted on the potential benefits and drawbacks of each proposed program (Orb Media can help identify potential contacts, if needed). The piece could conclude with a ranking of potential options, or a more general takeaway regarding the feasibility/utility of CHWs.

Investigation: How could CHWs be deployed to address mental health crises? 

Drawing from research by Orb Media, this story could explore how CHWs can be effective in addressing society-wide mental health issues, and propose ways to apply this in situations that affect the audience’s own lives (e.g. CHWs who help parents manage stress and anxiety over “kids staying at home all day”).

The story could also be framed as a “how you could make a difference in your community” piece, by sharing CHW training on mental health issues (e.g. how to listen to people in distress, what questions to ask; etc).

Investigation: How can CHWs help address [health concerns familiar among the audience]?

This story would identify one or more of your audience’s common, undercovered health-related issues (e.g. high rates of professional burnout or difficulties accessing social services during COVID-19) and then show how CHWs could help alleviate this problem.

If desired, the story could be broadened by exploring how CHWs could be used in tandem with other community-based interventions to help address the issue.

Investigation: How can CHWs support resilient healthcare systems during/after COVID-19?

Conduct local research on the biggest challenges faced by your healthcare system during COVID-19. Talk to local experts to identify where community members can be trained and deployed to help your community weather the storm of the pandemic (and any other future crises).

Research from Orb Media can be used to provide context on which types of deployments are most likely to achieve meaningful, long-term results. 

Explainer: How can CHWs help with COVID-19 (and pandemic preparedness in general)?

This story would investigate how CHWs are currently being used to support communities relevant to your audience, and how lessons learned from COVID-19 could be applied to address future pandemics more effectively (using also research from Orb Media to support/refute certain hypotheses).

If desired, the story could also focus specifically on vulnerable communities—such as immigrants, refugees, the undocumented—and how CHWs could help protect them during public health crises.

Investigation/Spotlight: Could the use of technology with CHWs help address PPE shortages and other issues?

Using research from Orb Media, this story could explore how technological innovations and trained CHWs can help safeguard health in regions where resources and infrastructure may be limited. 

This piece would outline how CHWs could provide a wide range of services (e.g. distributing PPE more evenly to prevent hoarding, training people how to maintain/create certain items, teaching communities about safe behaviors). It could also spotlight startups or government programs that are developing interesting tech solutions to pressing health-related issues.

Investigation: Could CHWs be a solution for urban health issues, too?

While people typically imagine CHWs operating in rural areas, research from Orb Media shows that their deployment in urban areas can be as beneficial—even if the services they provide (ex. providing rudimentary care in rural areas vs. encouraging use of healthcare services in urban ones) might differ in significant ways.

This story could spotlight transnational potential uses of CHWs in growing urban areas (especially in countries like Brazil, China, and the US) and illustrate how CHWs could be mobilized to meet the unique needs of these areas. It can also be used as a hook to specifically address healthcare inequity issues present in your audience’s urban environment. 

Investigation: Could CHWs help boost community trust in local healthcare systems?

If your community has trust issues with its healthcare system (due to historical factors and/or present day shortcomings), this story could explore its causes. In addition, this story can suggest ways in which CHWs could help build community trust, using research by Orb Media on countries like Mexico, Guatemala, and Bangladesh as supporting evidence.

With recent stories focusing on widespread mistrust of professional healthcare workers (sometimes with violent consequences) this issue is both timely and highly nuanced, with many avenues to explore potential implications.

Investigation: How can CHWs be used to build health and equity among marginalized community members? 

Research from Orb Media shows that CHWs can be integral to improving the health of marginalized communities (e.g. the Roma in Hungary). This story could focus on how CHWs could be deployed in such communities for a variety of purposes, such as contact tracing for COVID-19.The piece could also highlight important aspects of outreach to marginalized communities, such as deploying CHWs who speak the language and can present as members of that group. If desired, the story could be expanded to focus on other issues affecting these communities (such as nutrition or adherence to prescribed medications) and how CHWs could address these problems.

Investigation: Could CHW programs offer a pathway to diversifying healthcare systems?

This story would explore how working as CHWs could give those from marginalized communities an opportunity to gain experience and connections in the healthcare field, potentially opening up new pathways to career opportunities. 

Research from Orb Media indicates that CHW programs in countries like Bangladesh have unintentionally created similar pipelines, which have both immediate benefits (communities get better access to healthcare) and long-term ones (over time, the system becomes more representative of the people it serves).

Spotlight: How could CHWs help in the fight against the world’s deadliest diseases?

While conditions like malaria and acute respiratory illness can only be treated by doctors, research from Orb Media indicates that CHWs can be instrumental in both preventing such conditions and helping with follow-up care. This story could explore how CHWs, when trained and deployed correctly, can be instrumental in reducing the mortality rate of COVID-19 and other common diseases.

Whether they are helping to drive behavioral changes (like promoting handwashing) or distributing life-saving materials like mosquito nets, evidence has shown that CHWs can greatly expand the capabilities of community healthcare systems.