CHWs are natural helpers who can be effective in facilitating education, behavior change, health self management, and access to health care among under served and hard to reach populations. Use of CHWs is a cost effective strategy in facilitating individuals adherence to recommended health behavior changes, self-management of their health conditions, and access to health care (Brownstein et al., 2005): specifically, in promoting hypertension self management (Brownstein et al., 2007). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011) report, Addressing Chronic Disease Through Community Health Workers: A Policy and Systems Level Approach, cited research supporting the efficacy of CHWs in improving control of hypertension among high risk populations and reducing related mortality. Specifically, integrating CHWs into multidisciplinary health teams improved patients’ ability in keeping appointments, adhering to prescribed regimens, and reducing risk behaviors. In addition to the traditional skills of a CHW such as community outreach and advocacy, we added skills
such as behavior change motivation strategies used by wellness coaches and content areas such as medication management used by patient educators focused on chronic disease self-management. We trained community volunteers to be “Health Coaches” for our project, which is built on a collaboration between physicians, health department practitioners, and university researchers to improve hypertension control among older patients. This article describes how a combination of evidence based health promotion practices was used to develop an intervention to increase hypertension self management.