11 Key Community Health Worker Roles for Your Resume

Updated 4 March 2023

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The healthcare field includes a wide range of careers, like doctors, surgeons and nurses. One important healthcare role is that of community health worker, a professional who supports medical staff and ensures that people in rural communities have access to the treatment they need. If you are interested in pursuing this career path, it may be helpful to learn about the roles these professionals fill in their daily work.

In this article, we explain what community health workers do and share 11 key roles that you can include on your resume when you are applying for a job in this field.

What Do Community Health Workers Do?

Community health workers perform a variety of healthcare services for a specific town or village. Typically, they work for a government agency or a non-profit organisation. Often, they work with rural and underserved populations who may not have very much access to hospitals and clinics. These professionals support the work of doctors and nurses by teaching members of the community about hygiene and healthy living. Depending on their qualifications, they may also diagnose minor illnesses and injuries or provide medication.

11 Relevant Roles To Include On Your Resume

Relating your work experience and skills to the key roles that community health employees fill in their daily work can help you earn an interview with a government agency or non-profit organisation. If you have an experience that relates to these roles, you can add that information to your resume to show the organisation's hiring manager you can fulfil the job requirements. Here are 11 pertinent roles that you might list on your resume:

1. Administering first aid and basic health procedures

One key role of these healthcare employees is to provide basic medical care to people in the community they serve. They might bandage wounds, examine bruises and provide medication for minor injuries and illnesses. By fulfilling this role, they can ensure residents stay healthy. This role also benefits local medical facilities, since these healthcare support professionals can handle minor cases and allow the doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics to focus on more serious ailments. In your resume, specify how much training you have had in first aid and basic medical knowledge.

2. Supporting vaccination programmes

Often, these professionals serve as a liaison between a community and travelling health initiatives, like vaccination programmes. Because they know the people in the community they serve, they can often help medical professionals schedule these programmes and locate a suitable facility to administer vaccines to the entire community. They might also attend the programme and help the medical professionals administer vaccines, depending on their level of experience. Other members of staff might be responsible for collecting medical data and organising residents into queues. If you have experience organising large community events, mention it on your resume.

3. Providing counselling and home visits

In some communities, patients might prefer a home visit to going to a medical facility or community centre. These professionals might visit patients and their families to recommend certain courses of treatment or to help them with issues that might affect family members' health. This role requires patience and compassion, along with persistence, since some patients may not want to seek medical attention for themselves or family members. If you have experience counselling people or guiding them through medical issues, including this information on your resume can show that you are a good candidate for this role.

4. Helping patients access advanced care

Because these healthcare support employees are not doctors or nurses, they typically only provide minor medical assistance, like treating small wounds and helping patients take their medication. If they believe a member of their community needs more advanced medical care, they may help that person find a doctor or nurse in their area to provide that care. For example, they might meet with a resident of the village they serve and discover that the resident needs surgery. They can connect the resident with a local hospital, help them submit the correct documentation and even provide transportation.

5. Speaking to residents about health topics

These professionals support doctors and nurses by providing knowledge to people in their community. They might lead seminars about hygiene to prevent the spread of infectious diseases or teach families about vaccinating their children. In communities with high birth rates, these professionals might lead classes to teach expectant parents how to care for their infants after birth. These classes might include a few residents or the entire community. If you have experience leading groups or teaching, including this information in your resume might give you an advantage when applying for a community health employee position.

6. Teaching wellness habits

Along with information about current medical crises, community health employees spread knowledge about healthy living habits to their community. By increasing the residents' knowledge of nutrition and exercise, they can lower the rates of lifestyle conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. They might lead these classes in a community centre or go to children's schools and religious centres to teach. For example, a community health employee might visit a local school to teach the children about the importance of eating a healthy diet. This preventative care can help improve the health of the community.

7. Educating providers about populations

These professionals might live in or near the towns and villages they serve, so they form a deep understanding of the culture and society of their community. They can share this knowledge with the doctors and nurses who provide advanced care for the residents. For example, residents of a particular town might have longstanding medical issues from a natural disaster that happened a decade ago. By explaining the context to the doctors in the regional hospital, the community health employee can help build a relationship of trust between the people of the village and the doctors.

8. Translating for residents

If a community health employee supports a town or village where residents speak a different language than most of the region, they might accompany residents to the hospital or a specialist's office to translate for them. In regions where people speak many languages, the ability of the healthcare support employee to translate for members of their community can improve their medical outcomes by ensuring the doctors and nurses who treat them understand their symptoms and can give them directions. If you speak multiple languages, including this information on your resume can help you in the hiring process.

9. Gathering data

When they work for a national or international non-profit organisation, these employees often collect information about their community's demographics and needs. This information can help the organisation's leaders decide how to allocate funds and resources. The community health employee might track how often they give certain medical supplies and medications to residents or what per cent of the community attends community wellness programmes. They might also solicit information about residents by distributing surveys or interviewing community members. Highlighting your communication skills and persistence in your resume can show a hiring manager that you can fill this role.

10. Completing administrative tasks

Along with data collection, these professionals might perform a variety of administrative tasks. After they collect information from a survey or interview, they may enter the data into a health database or email it to the organisation. When residents need help accessing advanced medical care, the community health employee might help them collect their documents and fill out the required forms for admission to a hospital or speciality medical centre. Because record-keeping is an important role for these professionals, emphasising your organisational skills and attention to detail can give you an advantage in the hiring process.

11. Learning new information

Because medical knowledge is constantly evolving, these professionals complete additional training in innovative treatment methods throughout their careers. Their job might require them to learn new information quickly so they can provide the best possible treatment and knowledge to the community they support. For example, during a global healthcare crisis, a community health employee might receive new guidelines for infectious disease containment every few weeks as scientists learn more about a certain virus or other diseases. When you create your resume for this position, include evidence of your ability to learn quickly, like degrees or certifications.