Community Health Workers (CHWs) represent a link between members of the community and existing healthcare resources. They have had notable success reaching out to vulnerable communities in the United States with culturally tailored services. Despite mounting evidence of the positive impacts these programs can have, there is currently a lack of data relating these services to financial outcomes.

One possible method to further evaluate and understand these programs’ economic impact is “Return on Investment” (ROI) analysis, which calculates the total benefit derived from each dollar invested in a program. While this type of analysis is rarely performed on CHW interventions, it has the potential to justify their value to a variety of stakeholders.7 This report reviews the types of data which may be collected to conduct such as analysis and reviews examples of successful ROI calculations from different types of programs.

This report offers an overview of the studies conducted on determining the ROI of CHW interventions across the U.S., and also offers suggestions on how to conduct an ROI analysis on your program.