Community Health Ambassador Academy

Established in 2024, the COAACH Community Health Ambassador Academy is designed to empower passionate individuals who are well-connected in the community to lead health-focused initiatives, introduce participants to research, promote wellness and serve as key connectors between health care providers and the community.

Ambassadors are challenged to conduct a community or organizational needs assessment to get at what the population they seek to help is interested in learning. They use the information they glean to build relevant workshops.

“We do not specify that they have to focus on brain health. Instead, we challenge them to come up with a particular targeted health promotion topic or idea,” said COAACH Director Travonia Brown-Hughes, Ph.D. “Everything is based on what is relevant to what their community or organization needs most.”

Ambassadors meet with COAACH staff and North Carolina A&T faculty over the course of eight weeks to inform their workshops, discussing health care disparities, social determinants of health, community-based research, needs assessment development and analysis, health promotion and community advocacy and social media marketing.

“We’re investing in our ambassadors so that they can invest in their communities. As we do so, we are also creating a network that extends COAACH’s reach into the community,” said Ambassador Academy program specialist Evelyn Hoover, Ph.D., RN.

As part of the final session for each cohort, the ambassadors present their projects and receive certificates of completion from COAACH.

Write to ehoover@ncat.edu to learn more about COAACH’s Community Health Ambassador Academy