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Current Projects

Community Health Assessments

Community assessments focus on measuring local health status, identifying barriers to health care access, and pinpointing local resources that could be used to address health issues. Results of these assessments are used by numerous organizations for planning, implementing and evaluation programs and services to improve population health status. Historically, CCHD has conducted community health assessments in the Brazos Valley every three to four years (2002, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019).  The process that CCHD employs when conducting population health status assessments consists of a household survey (with the exception of 2016); Community Discussion Groups; and an examination of relevant, secondary (existing) data from a variety of other reliable sources. The 2022 Brazos Valley assessment concluded in May 2022 – the full report and presentation can be found here: a link to the report and presentation: https://cchd.us/publications/

Community Health Development and Capacity Building

Community Health Resource Centers (CHRCs)

CHRCs are one-stop-shops that provide rural residents with access to health and human services that are otherwise only available in urban cities. By reducing administrative costs through shared resources and centralized support, the CHRC model makes it possible for health and human service providers to afford to provide services to rural communities rather than only at their main offices in metropolitan areas. Since 2004, CCHD has partnered with communities to establish CHRCs in Burleson, Grimes, Leon, Madison, and Washington Counties. Currently, CCHD is facilitating the development of CHRCs in Bastrop, Robertson and Trinity Counties.

COVID-19 Health Equity Efforts in Public Health Region 7

Beginning in December 2021, CCHD has been subcontracted by the Texas Department of State Health Services to:

  1. Engage targeted communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and build sustainable relationships within those communities
  2. Work with targeted communities to explore and document reasons why their community was disproportionately impacted by COVID-19
  3. Identify and develop activities to maximize COVID-19 vaccination rates within the targeted communities
  4. Identify and engage with new and existing community partners to address health disparities
  5. Work with the targeted communities to develop an intervention plan aimed at addressing one of the factors that made the targeted community more vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19
  6. Share and disseminate information gained from the project process.

Program Evaluation

Evaluation of the Texas Rape Prevention & Education Program

Since 2015, the Texas Office of the Attorney General has contracted with CCHD to conduct the evaluation of the state’s Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) program. The Texas RPE program funds grantees across the state to implement sexual violence primary prevention strategies using guiding frameworks, the public health approach, and the social-ecological model. As the state-level evaluator, CCHD provides evaluation expertise to the state and grantees, develops evaluation tools and protocols, conducts training and technical assistance, and completes data collection and reporting.

Evaluation of the Well-Being in Rural Communities Initiative

The Well-Being in Rural Communities initiative aims to strengthen efforts to transform the environments where people live, learn, work, play and pray, bringing a population health approach to support resilience, mental health and well-being. Funded by the Hogg Foundation, five organizations across the state were awarded grants to create or build on an existing community collaborative. As the evaluator of the state-level initiative, CCHD provides evaluation consultation, develops data collection tools and reports, and works directly with community coalitions to assist in evaluation efforts including logic model development.

Evaluation of the Texas Remote Assistance Center and Texas Sexual Assault Program

In collaboration with the College of Nursing, CCHD works on two projects to ensure quality services in rural communities through the evaluation of the Texas Teleforensic Remote Assistance Center (Tex-TRAC) and Telehealth Center for Sexual Assault Forensic Medical Examination. The projects provide tele-assisted medical forensic exams to survivors of sexual assault in underserved areas. CCHD serves as the evaluator for the projects which includes quantitative and qualitative evaluation tool development, as well as data collection, analysis, and reporting.

Texas A&M Nurse Family Partnership

Beginning in September 2021, CCHD will evaluate the Texas A&M Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) which will be housed at the Texas A&M College of Nursing. The NFP is a voluntary, evidence-based nurse home visiting program shown to improve the health and well-being of low-income, first-time pregnant mothers and their children. Using the NFP program model, registered nurses routinely visit mothers at home during pregnancy and throughout the first two years of their children’s lives to provide education and support services regarding maternal and child health and wellbeing, healthy child development, and parenting. CCHD will serve as the evaluator for the program which includes program monitoring, data collection, analysis, and reporting. Additionally, the Texas A&M NFP will utilize Community Health Workers who will be managed and trained by CCHD’s National Community Health Worker Training Center.

Community Health Workers

CCHD is home to the National Community Health Worker Training Center (NCHWTC) which is a Department of State Health Services (DSHS)-certified training center that provides CHW and CHW Instructor certifications and continuing education units to CHWs/CHWIs and/or Promotores de Salud.

Curriculum Development and Trainings

Since inception, the NCHWTC has developed two certification curricula and various continuing education units (CEUs) for CHWs. Once developed, the training center offers trainings to CHWs across the country. Currently, the NCHWTC is one of few training centers that offer in-person classes and online courses in both English and Spanish. Additionally, the NCHWTC is also one of the few training centers that offer “self-paced” online courses allowing busy individuals to complete the certification course at their own pace and is the only training center to offer this self-paced, online format in Spanish. These online courses expand the training center’s national presence by increasing access to CHWs/CHWIs across the country who are unable to attend or do not have access to in-person classes. To date, the training center has provided over 132,000 hours of training to over 6,000 CHW/CHW Instructors. For more information about the available trainings, visit the NCHWTC website: https://nchwtc.tamhsc.edu/

Advancing the Access to Cancer Training, Information, Outreach and Navigation

In partnership with the College of Nursing, the NCHWTC was awarded a Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas dissemination grant focused on developing cancer prevention, detection, treatment and survivorship CEUs for CHWs. Through the grant, the training center is developing 13 new CEUs on liver and lung cancer and will train CHWs across the state. Additionally, the project will partner with dissemination partners across the state to build CHW capacity at individual and organizational levels through training and technical assistance.

Rural Health Best Practices: Evaluation of Community Health Workers

In partnership with the College of Nursing, the training center is participating in a cooperative agreement with the National Rural Health Association to train and evaluate CHWs at the national level. The evaluation focuses on CHW demographics, employment, certification status, and services provided, and data collected through the project will further research about utilization of CHWs for health education and outreach.

Community Health Worker Tobacco Cessation Outreach Strategies

Since 2016, the Texas DSHS has contracted with the NCHWTC to provide outreach and training to CHWs about tobacco cessation efforts and the DSHS tobacco Quitline. Though this ongoing project, the training center has developed a 160-hour certification course covering the required CHW core competencies with a particular focus on tobacco cessation. Each year, the NCHWTC expands upon project efforts to offer more trainings and develop additional resources for CHWs.

The Rural Community Matters Project

The Rural Community Matters Project is a partnership between Friendship of Women, Inc., a rape crisis center located in Cameron County, Texas, the College of Nursing, and the NCHWTC. The project intends to:

  1. Provide direct services to victims of trauma
  2. Provide education and training to law enforcement
  3. Provide CHW certification to victims of domestic violence to empower victims to become survivors so that they become self-sufficient
  4. Provide education to community residents to help increase awareness on prevention of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking

The NCHWTC will provide the project CHW certification trainings and will work closely with project partners to appropriately engage and empower survivors.