PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1616404
This article is part of the Research TopicDiversity, Intersectionality, and Inclusive Practices in Dementia Care and ResearchView all articles
Community Health Workers: Developing Roles In Public Health Dementia Efforts In The United States
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
- 2Alzheimer's Association, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- 3Grossman School of Medicine, New York University, New York, New York, United States
- 4Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States
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Community Health Workers (CHWs) are a growing part of the healthcare workforce.Trusted in their communities, CHWs can provide essential health education and connection with culturally responsive health and support resources and programs. Despite their demonstrated effectiveness in improving outcomes in other chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, HIV, and pediatric asthma, CHWs have been underutilized in dementia-related efforts. Properly equipped with education and skills, CHWs can fill important gaps throughout the dementia care continuum, strengthening public health efforts to support people with dementia and their families, especially in populations at higher risk such as African American, Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native groups. We outline key roles CHWs can play throughout the continuum of dementia care, improving brain health and reducing dementia risk at all life stages, improving early detection of cognitive impairment and helping caregivers navigate the daily challenges of dementia care in the community setting. Finally, we highlight key actions public health can lead to support the development of a dementia-capable workforce nationwide.No copyrighted material, surveys, instruments, or tools were used in the research described in this article.
Keywords: Chronic Disease, Community Health Workers, Dementia, Public Health, Workforce, social determinants of health
Received: 22 Apr 2025; Accepted: 18 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Johnson, Lewis, Nordyke, Lee, Roberts, Gaugler and Borson. 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: Elma Johnson, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
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