Community health workers and the communicative
transformation of work-life interrelationships during
the COVID-19 pandemic

Community health workers and the communicative
transformation of work-life interrelationships during
the COVID-19 pandemic

Work-life, ICTs, in-depth interviews, community health workers

This study focuses on work-life interrelationships for community health workers (CHWs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. CHWs serve as liaisons
between marginalized communities and health and human service organizations to facilitate access to services. Required physical distancing
transformed their work from embodied, face-to-face interaction to almost wholly mediated by communication technologies. Interviews were
conducted with 52 participants to identify CHWs’ adaptive strategies for communication, consequences of their adaptations for their experience
of work and work-life interrelationships, and their communicative management of negative unintended consequences. Communicative practices
that were emergent from participant accounts are examined through the lenses of four mutually informing research frameworks: the impact of
technologically mediated remote work on work-life interrelationships, technological capital and differentiated digital inequalities, the text work/

body work continuum, and gendered emotional work. Implications for the future of community-based care workers and for other workers with re-
spect to communication, technology, and managing work-life boundaries are examined.

Annis G. Golden1

*, Jane Jorgenson2

, Amy Williams1

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad009

6 March 2023

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