Abstracts

Rationale: Rationale: Strong evidence backs the effectiveness of community health worker (CHW) interventions in enhancing health outcomes.1 However, the integration of CHWs into clinical care delivery systems can face obstacles due to health professionals' perceptions of their roles and effectiveness. Despite growing interest among medical center stakeholders in integrating CHWs into care teams, research on their roles within specialty teams in clinical settings remains scarce. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine epilepsy center clinicians’ perceptions regarding factors that would facilitate integration of CHWs onto epilepsy care teams, inclusive of issues related to recruitment, training, supervision, roles and responsibilities.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the perceptions of multidisciplinary clinicians (n = 12; physicians, nurses, social workers) based at five epilepsy centers in New England about the potential of CHW integration on specialist epilepsy center teams. Transcripts were analyzed using a mixed inductive and deductive thematic approach.

Results: Themes which emerged from key informant interviews include: (1) limited epilepsy clinician awareness of the CHW role and minimal experience working with a CHW; (2) limited clinician knowledge on how to recruit CHW; (3) preference for CHW epilepsy clinic roles and responsibilities being focused on social determinants of health (4) clinician uncertainty around scope of CHW training and supervision; (5) funding mechanisms for CHW integration in epilepsy centers are unknown ; (6) known social determinants of health care gaps in epilepsy centers ; (7) openness to CHW integration on an epilepsy center care team

Conclusions: Despite clinicians' limited knowledge and experience concerning community health worker (CHW) roles and strategies for recruiting and maintaining CHW positions, the multidisciplinary clinicians interviewed recognized the potential benefits of integrating CHWs into epilepsy centers. They emphasized the urgent need to address care gaps related to social determinants of health. With healthcare systems increasingly emphasizing patient-centered, team-based care models, the role of community health workers (CHWs) is expected to evolve and broaden, becoming an essential component of interdisciplinary care teams within specialty practice settings.

Funding: This project is supported by the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Center, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award (SIP 20-006 U48DP006381-02).