Community health workers (CHWs) are trusted frontline professionals and vital links between health-related services and the community, facilitating access while building local capacity through support and education. The CHW workforce has grown tremendously over the past several years and is expected to continue growing faster than most other fields. In fact, a 2022 national survey estimates that over 50% of people within the US are familiar with CHWs. Over the past 60 years, CHWs have increasingly been serving as researchers or research support team members. A joint ASTHO NACHW research brief found that 14 studies from 1964-1973 included CHWs as researchers. The brief found that these numbers increased to 252 from 1994-2003 and to 574 from 2014-2016. A recent EBSCO search identified over 2,000 peer-reviewed articles on CHWs within the United States in the last decade. However, too often CHWs are confined to operational research tasks like education, outreach, recruitment, or data collection rather than being given leadership roles on the research study team where they can be involved in strategic decisions about study design, analysis, and dissemination. Limiting their involvement is not only unfair to the CHWs themselves, but it also can hinder the quality, relevance, and impact of CHW-related research. As Donovan et al. (2024) further explains, because CHWs are trusted community members and have unique understanding of local contexts, fully involving CHWs within research can improve research designs, processes, and outcomes. For example, CHWs can help a research team choose the best methods and practices for the community context, ensure all populations are included, provide critical context for data analysis, and be a bridge for research dissemination to the community. The inclusion of CHWs in research and evaluation is highly valuable for community-engaged research teams and of greatest importance when using community-based participatory research approaches. Areas in which CHW involvement is particularly important include health department program evaluations, community health assessments, writing community health improvement plans, and quality improvement initiatives.

As such, the Community Engagement to Advance Research and Community Health (CEARCH) team at the University of Minnesota’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute began a partnership initiative (including with the Minnesota CHW Alliance, SoLaHmo Partnership for Health and Wellness, the Minnesota Department of Health, and Community Health Workers) to cultivate the research role of CHWs in Minnesota by co-creating innovative training approaches, resources, and the support needed to engage CHWs in translational research programs and career tracks through collaborative partnerships.

To set the stage and better understand the current landscape of CHW professional development in research, our partnership launched an exploratory scan of nationwide training and educational resources. While we identified a few trainings that focused on the integration of CHWs into the research field, we discovered a need for training CHWs on research basics. Most of the curricula we found began with an assumption that CHWs already possessed a baseline understanding of research and did not adequately center CHWS’ unique value and powerful community roles. Based on this scan, we structured our project to engage CHWs as equal partners from the start by including their voices, views and experiences on research, validating their community expertise, and tailoring the training and development of future plans for career expansion opportunities to their unique needs and current health professional landscape in Minnesota. 

The first phase of the project was the development of a new “CHWs 101: Introduction to Research” course. This included working with a team of CHWs to review existing CHW curricula, understand what resources CHWs need, and draft the new course. The course was then refined and finalized through iterative reviews by the SoLaHmo team, Minnesota CHW Alliance, CEARCH, the Minnesota Department of Health, and two focus groups with CHWs. The course was launched at the 2025 Minnesota Rural CHW Conference in November and has been promoted through various CHW communication channels including newsletters, emails, and website promotions. It is now housed alongside other free CHW trainings on Minnesota Department of Health’s website.

Some CHWs have commented about the course saying, “I found this course to be of huge value for my own knowledge and professional development, as it provided a different perspective on what a research process entailed and its main goal, it also gave me the opportunity to see myself on these new research roles in collaboration with the research team.” Another shared, “I enjoyed the course. It helped me realize how much research goes into a CHW role and how important it is for a CHW to do research on issues or concerns brought up by community members.”

We are also collecting preliminary evaluation metrics of the course including satisfaction, knowledge/skills/abilities attainment, and ways the course could be improved. The next phase of the project involves revising the CHW 101 Introduction to Research course based on the evaluation results and exploring other ways to help CHWs build research careers, including additional training and career expansion opportunities. Together, these efforts and this partnership initiative lay the groundwork for expanding CHWs’ roles and leadership opportunities in advancing research for the greater good of our communities.

Chelsey Kirkland, PhD, MPH, CHW, is a researcher with the Center for Public Health Systems at University of Minnesota School of Public Health. During her time there, she has collaborated on numerous nation-wide, mixed-methods research projects working to support and build-up the public health workforce. Her background is in a variety of public health issues including health equity, health disparities, social determinants of health, community health workers, and physical activity. When not working, she enjoys being outside with her family and dog. Her favorite activities include running, water-skiing, and playing violin.

Beatriz Torres, PhD, MPH, CHP, BA, is the Associate director of Community-Based Research, SoLaHmo/Community-University Health Care Center, University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on social determinants of health, health equity and public health communication. She has been a SoLaHmo Partnership for Health and Wellness member for 14 years working on various community driven research projects ranging from healthy eating and exercise to HPV and COVID vaccination. She has also been a tenured faculty for more than 20 years teaching communication, interdisciplinary and public health courses. In her spare time, she enjoys fishing, boating, hiking and the outdoors.

Kate Diaz Vickery, MD, MSc, is Co-Director and a Principal Investigator of the Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI). Kate is a family medicine trained Primary Care Provider and Medical Director of Hennepin County Health Care for the Homeless. She serves as Vice President of Engagement at HHRI. Her research centers on the health impacts of homelessness and the opportunities to redesign care to better meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness. In all of her work Kate strives to engage with people and communities with lived experiences aligned with the values of community-based participatory research.

Fanny Jimbo Llapa, CHW, MPH, is currently a program coordinator in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Using her lived-experience, bilingual skills, community health role, partnerships with community organizations and community members, her master’s degree in public health and program evaluation experience; Fanny envisions creating system changes to address health disparities. She is a firm believer that change starts within our community.

Denita Ngwu is a community advocate and Community Health Worker with clinical, public health, and community-based research training, bringing over 15 years of experience supporting individuals and families impacted by domestic violence, housing instability, and complex life transitions. Her work centers on crisis intervention, resource connection, and relationship-based support that helps individuals and families move toward stability and long-term goals. She also collaborates with SoLaHmo and the Community-University Health Care Center (CUHCC) to strengthen Community Health Worker engagement and training in community-driven research.

Anita Tamang is a health advocate and researcher passionate about advancing social justice in global public health. She currently serves as Lead Community Health Worker at CHW Solutions and as a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Minnesota, where she is pursuing an MPH in Epidemiology. Since 2022, she has been a member of SoLaHmo, contributing to community-based participatory research and community driven initiatives. With a BA in Global Health from Luther College and Community Health Worker certification from Northwest Technical College, her work centers on ground-level interventions to reduce health disparities alongside newcomers and underserved communities in Minnesota.

Angelica Koch, DrPH, MPH, is the Assistant Director of CEARCH (Community Engagement to Advance Research and Community Health) within the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the University of Minnesota and a lecturer in the School of Public Health. A public health expert in organizational leadership, health care coalitions, and community-based initiatives, she brings extensive experience in designing and evaluating impactful programs that bridge research and practice through participatory approaches.