Community health worker outreach to farmworkers in rural North Carolina: Learning from adaptations to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Community health workers represent a critical part of the health outreach and services for migrant and seasonal farmworkers ('farmworkers') in rural areas of the United States.

Purpose: We sought to identify adaptations to farmworker patient engagement and health outreach made by community health workers during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: In this qualitative study, we used semi-structured interviews with community health workers from August 2020 to February 2022 (n = 21). Two coders used thematic analysis to identify three themes related to the experiences of community health workers in conducting health education and outreach to farmworkers prior to and following the onset of the pandemic.

Findings: We found themes related to pre-pandemic outreach efforts to provide health education resource sharing with farmworkers and pandemic-related outreach efforts that included adoption of porch drops and distanced delivery of health education, adaptation of modes of health education and communication through technology and the internet, and taking on new roles related to COVID-19. Finally, we identified changes that reverted after the pandemic or will continue as adaptations.

Conclusions: Community health workers created practice-based innovations in outreach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These innovations included new COVID-19 related roles and new modes of health education and outreach, including the use of digital resources. The changes developed for emergency use in COVID-19, particularly related to internet and technology, have likely altered how community health workers conduct outreach in North Carolina going forward. Funders, community health worker training programs, and researchers should take note of these innovations.

Patient or public contribution: Community health workers who typically come from patient populations and provide critical navigation and connection with the health care system advised on the design and creation of this research project, including serving on an advisory board. Two authors have experience working as community health workers.

Keywords: COVID‐19; community health workers; community‐institutional relations; farmers; transients and migrants.