State Examples of Medicaid Community Engagement Strategies: Two Case Studies

Tekisha Dwan Everette, Dashni Sathasivam, and Karen Siegel, Health Equity Solutions

Community engagement is a key component of health equity work because it fosters trust and mutual respect, unearths unforeseen or unintended barriers to health, and improves efficacy by ensuring programs respond to the experiences of the people they impact. Yet, there is little documentation of how to successfully engage program enrollees, translate engagement into policy change, or resolve challenges related to the resource-intensive nature of engagement. This issue brief provides two case studies highlighting work in Virginia and Colorado to meet these challenges. Each state has invested in coordinated community engagement strategies that amplify the voices of those directly impacted by Medicaid and leverage their input to drive improvements. This pioneering work offers practical examples of how to structure community engagement to foster participation and improve program outcomes.

For a discussion of how states can engage program enrollees to improve communication and more effective and efficient programs, see the companion issue brief Transformational Community Engagement to Advance Health Equity. 

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