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accessHealthNews.net
May 2023
Volume 9 | Issue No. 70
T
hroughout history, community health workers (CHWs)
have been integral to helping communities heal
with regard to both physical well-being and healing
from trauma as a result of oppression. To honor the first
National Day of Racial Healing earlier this year, the
National Association of Community Health Workers
(NACHW) held an inaugural annual webinar to highlight
the newly endorsed American Public Health Association
(APHA) policy recognizing CHWs' role as racial health
advocates and the historical role of CHWs as healers.
Though the policy itself is within the APHA's CHW section,
Rumana Rabbani, MHA, CHW-VPP, and Abdul Bin
Abdullah, CHW-VPP – the policy's principal authors who
presented the webinar along with NACHW – are from
Community Healing through Activism and Strategic
Mobilization (CHASM). Rabbani is CHASM's director of
strategic improvement and policy, and Abdullah serves
as the director of programs and community mobilization.
CHASM is a community-led organization of strategic
learning that aims to build capacity for CHWs and
community-based organizations (CBOs) within historically
oppressed communities, neutralize systemic inequities,
and enhance harmony within the social ecology. The
organization recognizes the deep "chasm" between
health care and social determinants of health
interventions resulting in the perpetuation and inequities
within systems.
CHASM recognizes Historically Oppressed and Other
Peoples Experiencing Inequities (HOPEIs) as people who
were brought from Africa and enslaved in America, and
Indigenous First Nations (including descendants of those
groups who trace their genealogy back to Indigenous
Mexicans, Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, etc.) whose land
was colonized by Europeans. HOPEIs also include other
populations experiencing inequities, such as women,
Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, people with
disabilities, and others. However, due to the imbalance
caused by the transgenerational and systemic nature of
racism, historically oppressed people are prioritized in this
specific work.
Addressing Racism as a Public Health Emergency
There is no clear universal strategy to address and
dismantle systemic racism, especially with regard to
public health. The policy authored in part by Rabbani
and Abdullah is one potential approach that recognizes
the value of CHWs in helping communities heal in a
culturally appropriate and responsive way.
The policy, A Strategy to Address Systemic Racism
and Violence as Public Health Priorities: Training and
Supporting Community Health Workers to Advance
Equity and Violence Prevention, addresses three main
points:
1. Systemic racism and violence have been widely
acknowledged as public health emergencies;
however, we currently lack comprehensive strategies
that address the underlying causes of these public
health threats.
2. CHWs are well-suited and well-placed to address
these underlying causes and reduce violence and
racism.
3. To make an optimum contribution to addressing
racism and violence, CHWs need to be trained,
supported, and provided with more opportunities
through program development.
"We need everyone at the table to address this problem that impacts us all
collectively. You can't heal a community just by making them feel 'more
connected' or that butterfly feeling, that's not healing. To make me feel
better and more connected, that's one thing. But you have to also build
efficacy, you have to help them learn how to actually stop the harm from
continuously happening."
- Abdul Bin Abdullah, CHW-VPP
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