Community Health Workers (CHWs) play a vital role in reducing health disparities and advancing health equity in underserved communities. As trusted members of the neighborhoods they serve, CHWs bridge the gap between individuals, families, and complex health and social service systems.
Health disparities are often driven by social determinants such as language barriers, limited access to care, low health literacy, and long-standing systemic inequities. Community Health Workers help address these challenges by providing culturally and linguistically appropriate education, care coordination, and
advocacy. Their work ensures that community members not only understand available resources, but also feel supported and empowered to access them.
At the Brookland-Lakeview Empowerment Center (BLEC), Community Health Workers serve as frontline connectors, linking families to a wide range of essential programs and services. These include diabetes prevention and management, mental health first aid training, food pantry and clothing services, academic support, technology training, access to social workers, workforce development training opportunities, Job Search Connector
resources, and reliable internet and computer services. Through outreach, education, and one-on-one engagement, CHWs build trust, strengthen relationships, and promote improved health outcomes while fostering community stability and resilience.
Research consistently demonstrates that Community Health Workers reduce unnecessary emergency room utilization, increase engagement in preventive care, and improve chronic disease management. Beyond these measurable outcomes, CHWs elevate community voices and help organizations respond more effectively to the unique needs of the populations they serve.
Reducing health disparities requires more than clinical care alone. It requires sustained investment in community-based solutions rooted in trust, cultural understanding, and lived experience. Community Health Workers remain a proven and powerful strategy for building healthier, more equitable communities.
For more information about BLEC’s programs, services, and resources, contact Dr. Jacqueline Betancourt at 803-744-7944 or via email at jbetancourt@brookland.cc
Dr. Jacqueline Betancourt is the Senior Community Health Worker at the Brookland-Lakeview Empowerment Center.
one White, one Black — each with her own focus. My White grandmother kept the Revolution close to her heart. My Black grandmother told stories of the Civil War and the era of Reconstruction.
They shared these histories not as trivia, but as instruction: to teach, to inspire, and to hold firm to the principles that guided our ancestors, white and Black alike. In their different stories, the same thread ran through both: the American principles that led our ancestors to throw off kings also made it possible to throw off slave owners. Liberty, they showed us, was never limited to one race, one time, or one struggle.
Our nation’s story is one of
struggle and perseverance. For people across races, regions, and walks of life, liberty has always been contested. The ideals of the Revolution were aspirational from the start, limited by the exclusions of the time, and extended only through centuries of struggle: abolition, civil rights, voting rights, labor rights, and the ongoing fight for accountability and justice for all.
As cities plan parades, concerts, and tall ship flotillas for the 250th, we should ask who will be invited to the stage and whose stories will be told. Celebrations of liberty mean little if they erase the struggles that made it possible or ignore freedoms still denied today.
The deaths in Minnesota are not merely local tragedies; they are a call to the conscience of every American. They remind us that the revolution — the effort to define freedom as something real and universal — is not over. It didn’t end on a battlefield, and it doesn’t stop with another fireworks display.
So when we tell the stories this year, let’s do it as my grandmothers did. Let us tell history to the children as instruction for the America we must all build together again.
Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former national president and CEO of the NAACP.
