Community Health Workers: Bearers of the Light in Health, Healing, and Care

Since the 1940\u27s with the development of the community oriented Primary care model of sydney and Emily Kark that originated in Africa and was transposed to the United States, Community Health Workers (CHWs) have been integrated in community health activities. As individuals from the community intimately connected to its people and its cultural life-ways and meaning, they provide primary services and care as advocates, liaisons, educators, cultural brokers, and navigators; bridging multifaceted hanscultural constructs within systems. Thi increasing diversity of communities, the health inequities, and the call for culturally responsive care, reinforce the significance of understanding the practice of community Health workers in healthcare teams, programming, and community-based outreach. A model of transdisciplinary co-evaluation integrating Watson\u27s Nursing as a Caring Sctence (2008), aesthetic knowing, and advanced transcultural nursing praxis, recognizes diverse ways of knowing and potentially describes legible and illegible CHW impacts