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This year, Peers for Progress, National Council of La Raza, along with colleagues of the National Peer Support Collaborative Learning Network, have worked hard to advocate for the adoption, scale up, and sustainability of peer support.
Our projects include developing a Call to Action, advancing quality assurance for community health workers, conducting economic analyses of peer support programs, and collecting personal stories of peer support. This issue recaps a selection of the work done by us and collaborators during 2014 that can help you encourage buy-in and uptake of peer support.
Our workshop in December will put all of these pieces together as we look forward to 2015. Check back in future newsletters for news on our advocacy efforts and to get involved!
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Affordable Care Act Opportunities for Community Health Workers
The ACA has created significant incentives and opportunities to increase the role of CHWs in state Medicaid programs. This brief from the Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School reviews how Medicaid Preventive Services, Medicaid Health Homes, and State Innovation Models are opening doors for CHWs. [Read more]
Call to Action: Integrating Peer Support in Prevention and Health Care under the Affordable Care Act
To accelerate the implementation of peer support programs under the ACA, several organizations in the National Peer Support Collaborative Learning Network came together to develop this Call to Action. This document draws attention to key provisions in the ACA for peer support and calls on policymakers to work to assure their implementation and funding in ways that preserve both the “peerness” and flexibility of peer support.
If your organization would be interested in endorsing this Call to Action, it would help us demonstrate the strong organizational support behind these important initiatives. [Read more]
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Program Resources
Global Evidence for Peer Support: Humanizing Health Care
The projects funded by Peers for Progress have demonstrated strong evidence that peer support is not only successful at reaching and engaging communities, but that it is feasible, effective, and sustainable.
Furthermore, these projects show that peer support is a practical, affordable, and popular model for health promotion and chronic disease self-management. Effective and humanizing, peer support can meet present and future health care needs by facilitating the delivery of the right care at the right time at the right cost. [Read more]
Tell Your Story: Personal Accounts of Peer Support
To celebrate the individual and collective impact of peer support around the world, we recently asked peer supporters, program staff, and recipients of peer support to share their personal stories. In this collection, you will find a selection of the stories that we collected. We hope that you will feel as inspired and moved by these stories as we were. [Read more]
Opening a Channel: Finding Connection and Healing Beyond the Clinic
In this powerful story, a community health worker and his patient share their stories about learning to live with diabetes. [Read more]
Bridging the Gap: A Community Health Program Saved Lives, then Closed Its Doors
Why do we need to advocate for peer support programs? In this essay, a program connecting community health workers with patients in Boston shows benefits but is shuttered after funds dry up. [Read more]
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Research Briefs
CHWs in Primary Care Practice: Redesigning Health Care Delivery Systems to Extend and Improve Diabetes Care in Underserved Populations
This study examines findings from interviews with patients, CHWs, and primary care providers (PCPs) to understand how health care delivery systems can be redesigned to effectively incorporate CHWs and how embedding CHWs in primary care teams can produce informed, activated patients and prepared, proactive practice teams who can work together to achieve improved patient outcomes. [Abstract]
Engaging Faith-Based Resources to Initiate and Support Diabetes Self-Management Among African Americans: A Collaboration of Informal and Formal Systems Of Care
Diabetes for Life (DFL) is a project that aimed to reduce health disparities among African Americans with diabetes in Tennessee. This study describes the faith-based strategies supporting DFL made possible by linking with an established informal health system. The article describes the project components and the effect on chronic disease management. [Abstract]
Internet-Based Peer Support for Parents: A Systematic Integrative Review
The aim of this review was to explore Internet-based peer-support interventions and their outcomes for parents. In 16 studies, the Internet-based interventions had been developed by researchers and 22 studies used already existing Internet peer-support groups, in which any person using the Internet could participate. For mothers, Internet-based peer support provided emotional support, information and membership in a social community. For fathers, it provided support for the transition to fatherhood, information and humorous communication. [Abstract]
"Someone Like Us": Delivering Maternal Mental Health Through Peers in Two South Asian Contexts
Peer-led psychosocial interventions are one solution to address the great paucity of skilled mental health human resources in South Asia. The aim of this study was to explore peer-delivered care for maternal depression in two diverse contexts in South Asia. The study was carried out in the urban setting of Goa, India and rural setting in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There are contextual differences in the preferred characteristics and motivators between the sites, and these should be carefully considered in program implementation. [Abstract]
Want to know more? Check out this New York Times editorial about this project from Tina Rosenberg: “A Depression-Fighting Strategy That Could Go Viral”
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Funding Opportunities
Self-Management for Health in Chronic Conditions (R01)
Deadline: February 5, 2015
Funds: Not limited / Max 5 years
This FOA describes an initiative that focuses on self-management as a mainstream science in order to reduce the burden of chronic illnesses/conditions. Self-management is the ability of the individual, in conjunction with family, community, and healthcare professionals, to manage symptoms, treatments, lifestyle changes, and psychosocial, cultural, and spiritual consequences associated with a chronic illness or condition. [Read more]
Advancing Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence (R21)
Deadline: February 16, 2015
Funds: $275,000 total / 2 years
This FOA encourages applications for research and development of interventions to significantly improve medication adherence in individuals. Applications may target medication adherence in the context of treatment for a single illness or chronic condition (e.g., hypertension), to stave off a disease recurrence (e.g., cancer) or for multiple comorbid conditions (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, alcohol use disorders and HIV/AIDS). [Read more]
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