Promoting the Health of the Community: Community Health Workers Describing Their Roles, Competencies, and Practice

Julie Ann St. John, DrPH, MPH, MA, CHWI, is the Associate Chair, Department of Public Health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), and the Assistant Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, TTUHSC, Abilene campus (Associate, tenured professor). She has her doctorate in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health. She is a Texas-certified Community Health Worker Instructor, serves on the Texas CHW Advisory Committee, serves on the Interim Board of the Texas Association of Promotores and Community Health workers, is a member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) CHW Section Council, and has worked with CHWs for twenty years. Her research interests include utilizing CHWs in community-based participatory research and community health development approaches, and she has served as the principal and co-investigator on numerous projects. She founded the National CHW Training Center at TexasA&M School of Public Health. Additionally, she teaches several undergraduate- and graduate-level public health courses.

Susan L. Mayfield-Johnson, PhD, MPH, MCHES, is an Associate Professor in the School of Health Professions, College of Nursing and Health Professions, at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She has served as a CHW ally for over twenty years. Her research has focused on CHWs, vulnerable populations, health disparities, and qualitative research designs. Nationally, she is an advisory board member for the National Association of Community Health Workers (NACHW), section council member with the Community Health Worker (CHW) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), and a Master Trainer for the Women’s Health Leadership Institute, Office of Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She also serves on the Southeastern Health Equity Council, as a part of the Regional Health Equity Councils with the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities for the Office of Minority Health. She also served as an International Outbound Fellow with the U.S. State Department and Association of University Centers on Disabilities. In Mississippi, she serves on various state-wide committees and advisory councils like the Health Equity Coalition, Mississippi Chronic Illness Coalition, Mississippi Food Policy Council, and the Mississippi Hypertension Coalition. Most recently, she was honored as a Health Care Hero by the Mississippi Business Journal and by the Mississippi Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning as the Diversity and Inclusion Educator of the Year. 

Wandy D. Hernández-Gordon, CD(DONA), BDT(DONA), CLC, CCE(ACBE), CHW, has been involved with community health workers since she was a child as a consumer of services, to now as the community health worker national speaker and advocate for 25 years. Wandy has been a bilingual andbicultural specialized trainer at HealthConnect One (HC One) in Chicago, Illlinois, since 1999, and is a Certified Lactation Counselor, DONA-Certified Doula Trainer, and Certified Childbirth Educator. Wandy served as President of the National Lay Health Workers/Promotores Network from 2005-2007, and from 2012-2014 served as the Chair of the American Public Health Association’s CHW Section. Wandy served as an active member of the Illinois Statewide Community Health Worker Advisory Board, and in 2011 served as an advisory board member of The Illinois AHEC Network and of the South Suburban College Community Health Worker Technology Advisory Community. Wandy is a co-founder of the Chicago Community Health Workers Local Network, formally known as Illinois Community Health Worker Association, and is a co-author of a peer-reviewed article entitled “The Journal of Ambulatory Care Management Community Health Workers Part 1.” Currently, Wandy chairs the Board of the National Association of Community Health Workers, where she brings vision and values to the table in support of unity in the CHW workforce.