Community Health Worker
Career Area: Health Care including Nursing
Occupation Group: Health Education and Counseling
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Community Health Worker earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $42,154
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $43,532
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Works in the community to help individuals get medical care and access to health care resources. Promotes preventative care and health screenings; works with health care providers to improve community outreach.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 188 | +14.6% |
| Nationwide | 6928 | +12.5% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Community Health Worker is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
- English: English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca.
- Spanish: Spanish (; espaol ), also called Castilian (, castellano ), is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Public Health and Safety: Working experience of Public Health and Safety. Public health is defined as the science of protecting the safety and improving the health of communities through education, policy making and research for disease and injury prevention.
- Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
- Community Health: Community health is a major field of study within the medical and clinical sciences which focuses on the maintenance, protection and improvement of the health status of population groups and communities as opposed to the health of individual patients.
- Case Management: Medical case management is a collaborative process that facilitates recommended treatment plans to assure the appropriate medical care is provided to disabled, ill or injured individuals.
- Mental Health: Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Community Health Worker that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Home Health: Home care (also referred to as domiciliary care, social care, or in-home care) is supportive care provided in the home.
- Treatment Planning: A detailed plan with information about a patient s disease, the goal of treatment, the treatment options for the disease and possible side effects, and the expected length of treatment.
- Hospice: Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs.
- Patient Assistance: Providing care that is respectful of, and responsive to, individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
- Community Development: The United Nations defines community development as a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems. It is a broad term given to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 70% |
| 3 to 5 years | 26% |
| 6 to 8 years | 2% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Community Liaison
- Contact Tracer
- Community Health Advocate
- Guest Advocate Target Hire
- Covid - Contact Tracer
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