Advancing Community-Engaged Research in Indiana's Public Health Emergency Districts: A Statewide Community Health Worker-Driven Infrastructure

The previous pandemic widened the inherent health disparities in public health systems and reiterated the need to strengthen public health workforce to comprehensively address upstream factors affecting health. Community preparedness and integrated public health programs are strategic measures to circumvent health disparity gaps and are the topmost priorities of any emergency response efforts. To achieve these objectives, Indiana Health Equity Council (IN HEC) Community Health Worker Model was co-developed by the Indiana Department of Health Office of Minority Health (IDOH-OMH), Indiana Community Health Workforce Association (INCHWA), TechServ Corporation and Community Health Workforce Development Institute (CHWDI) at Purdue to leverage the research competencies of Community Health Workers to identify health disparities and potential community efforts that will alleviate them in Indiana’s public health emergency districts. In this statewide infrastructure, Health Equity Community Health Workers led and facilitated focus groups using community-engaged research to generate evidence highlighting health disparities associated with public health emergencies and areas of concentration of potential community-based interventions, which would inform 9-month District Action Plans (DAPs). Verbatim transcripts of focus group recordings were coded using deductive approaches, and district-level focus group summaries were produced, identifying emergent themes across different domains. A total of 54 individuals participated in 14 focus group sessions across nine preparedness districts. Identified barriers include complicated bureaucracy, financial constraints, inadequate workforce capacity, and siloed public health systems, while potential district action plans include community needs assessments, health literacy programs, enculturation of communication resources, transportation services, and psychosocial programs.