42 U.S.C. § 280g–11 — Awards to support community health workers and community health

(a) In general: The Secretary must award grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to organizations that use community health workers. The goal is to improve health behaviors and outcomes in medically underserved communities, including by meeting long-term community health needs and growing the community health worker workforce. These awards must line up with existing funding that already supports community health workers. (b) Use of funds: Groups that get this money must follow any State rules about what a community health worker is licensed to do. They must use the funds to: (1) recruit, hire, train, and keep community health workers who reflect the community's needs; (2) have these workers teach and do outreach in the community about (A) health conditions common in medically underserved communities -- especially racial and ethnic minority groups -- and other at-risk groups, including during public health emergencies; and (B) reducing health disparities, by promoting awareness of services like health care, mental health and substance use care, housing, education, nutrition, and jobs, and by helping assess what the community needs; (3) teach community members healthy habits; (4) help people sign up for health insurance, including CHIP, Medicare, and Medicaid; (5) connect underserved people with the right health care agencies and community programs, acting as a bridge between the community and the health system; and (6) support workers who teach people about, or make home visits for, chronic disease, maternal health, pregnancy, and after-birth care, to improve outcomes for mothers and babies. (c) Application: To get an award, a group must apply the way the Secretary requires. (d) Priority: The Secretary must favor applicants that: (1) plan to serve areas with high rates of chronic disease, infant death, or maternal illness and death; low-income or medically underserved populations; people in health professional shortage areas; people in maternity care shortage areas; or rural, minority, or other traditionally underserved populations; (2) have experience serving underserved people, including rural and minority populations; (3) already have community activity and relationships with community health workers there; (4) plan to serve people in their own language and cultural context, as much as practical; and (5) plan to use evidence-based or evidence-informed practices. (e) Collaboration with academic institutions and the one-stop delivery system: The Secretary must encourage grantees to team up with colleges, health professional schools, minority-serving schools, area health education centers, and one-stop job centers -- but nothing forces them to. (f) Technical assistance: The Secretary may help grantees plan, build, and run their programs. (g) Dissemination of best practices: By four years after December 29, 2022, the Secretary must find and share evidence-based or evidence-informed practices for recruiting and keeping community health workers and paraprofessionals, based on this section's work and talks with stakeholders. (h) Report to Congress: By that same four-year deadline, the Secretary must send Congress a report on how well this program works, with recommendations for improving worker recruitment, training, and retention. (i) Authorization of appropriations: Congress may spend $50,000,000 each year from 2023 through 2027 on this section. (j) Definitions: "Eligible entity" means a public or nonprofit group -- including a State, tribe, urban Indian organization, community group, health department, free clinic, hospital, federally-qualified health center, or a team of these. "Indian Tribe" and "Tribal organization" mean what those terms mean in title 25, section 5304. "Urban Indian organization" means what that term means in title 25, section 1603.