WKYC Highlights Community Health Worker Impact on Client’s Health Journey

Community health worker (CHW) Fonda McLaine and her client, Nadine Head, who are participating in Addressing Cardiometabolic Health Inequities by Early Prevention in the Great Lakes Region (ACHIEVE GreatER), a research project funded by the National Institutes of Health, were featured in a recent WKYC news segment. ACHIEVE GreatER, highlighted during a 2022 Better Health Partnership webinar, is a multi-stakeholder partnership among Better Health Partnership, Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals, Wayne State University and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA), operating in both Cleveland and Detroit.

The goal of ACHIEVE GreatER is to reduce cardiovascular complications and hospitalizations for Black patients living in public housing, and who are at risk of heart disease, by improving blood pressure, lipid, and glucose targets. The project, which seeks to determine the impact grassroots efforts can have to address cardiovascular health disparities, pays for community health workers, nurses and care coordinators to work with clients living in CMHA units and coordinate their care with clinical providers and other community resources. Better Health Partnership (BHP) is partnering with University Hospitals to offer a sustainable model for funding CHWs beyond the 5-year grant cycle via the Better Health Pathways HUB.

Ms. McLaine, a certified CHW employed by University Hospitals and an active partner with the Better Health Pathways HUB, has been visiting residents living in neighborhoods served by CMHA and working with clients, including Ms. Head, to provide tools and education. In the news segment, she describes some of the healthcare needs that she sees firsthand when working with clients - including food insecurity, food access, pharmacy access, mental health – and how unaddressed needs can lead to disease.

Working closely with Ms. Head, a client who has a number of health concerns including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, anemia, COPD and sleep apnea, Ms. McLaine has witnessed her client’s significant health improvements. She has lost 50 pounds in six months, has been able to stop taking her diabetes medication and she can breathe better!