ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Epilepsy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1654687
Innovating the Practice of Epilepsy Care to Improve Patient Outcomes: A Model for Community Health Worker Integration
Provisionally accepted
- 1Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States
- 2The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lebanon, United States
- 3Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, United States
- 4University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School TH Chan School of Medicine, Worcester, United States
- 5Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta, United States
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There is substantial evidence that community health worker (CHW) interventions can lead to improved health outcomes. However, their integration into specialty care teams—particularly within epilepsy care—is still limited. Embedding CHWs onto epilepsy center teams presents a promising opportunity to address health inequities by incorporating whole-person patient centered care and addressing social determinants of health (SDOH). The conceptual model introduced in this manuscript highlights the importance of collaboration between epilepsy centers, medical centers, health systems, community partners and nontraditional CHW professional workforce to drive systemic change. We share a process model that supports the pragmatic integration of CHWs onto epilepsy care teams and the implementation of standardized SDOH screening taking into account existing multidisciplinary professional roles and common epilepsy center frameworks for delivering care.
Keywords: epilepsy specialist teams, patient centered care, Community Health Workers, Healthequity, disparities, social determinants of health, integrated care teams
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kiriakopoulos, Chu, Jobst and Kobau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Elaine T Kiriakopoulos, elaine.t.kiriakopoulos@dartmouth.edu
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