How To Become A Community Health Educator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a community health educator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Shari DeVeney Ph.D., CCC-SLP

A community health educator is a health professional whose job is to educate a community on good health and disease prevention. They can work in various places within the community, such as schools, government positions, and private companies and businesses. The job is aimed towards delivering education and resources that allow a community to improve their well-being through behavioral changes. They can influence the community's view of obesity, substance abuse, and dietary issues. The community health educator develops, implements, and reviews health education programs.

To become a community health educator, you'll need at least a bachelor's degree in health education or a related field with experience in public health education activities. Candidates must be experienced with using Microsoft Office, writing grants and must possess communication and organization skills. A community health educator earns about $42,408 per annum. The salary range falls between $32,000 and $56,000.

What general advice would you give to a community health educator?

Dr. Shari DeVeney Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Graduate Program Chair, Department of Special Education & Communication Disorders, Omaha

There are a number of skills that will become increasingly important in health and wellness fields over the next 3-5 years. One of these is expanding capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration. Efficiently and successfully addressing complex health, wellness, and/or educational issues often requires collaboration across different professional disciplines. Effective communication is essential for these kinds of collaborations. You will need to be able to contribute to a team and work well with others to explain complex concepts specific to your area of the field with clients and colleagues as well as provide complementary - not overlapping or contradictory - clinical services with your professional partners. Additionally, cultural competence -showing respect and understanding of cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values that differ from your own - will become increasingly important for effective clinical practices within a pluralistic society. Finally, skills related to successful and appropriate remote care delivery are important to cultivate. The rise of tele-medicine, tele-therapy, and remote client monitoring will require health and wellness professionals to adapt their skill sets so they can not only provide high-quality care through in-person interactions, but also through remote formats.

ScoreCommunity Health EducatorUS Average

Salary

3.4

Avg. Salary $43,889

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.7

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.31%

Asian 6.17%

Black or African American 11.17%

Hispanic or Latino 19.81%

Unknown 6.42%

White 55.12%

Gender

female 81.13%

male 18.87%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

7.7

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

9.1

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a community health educator

Explore community health educator education requirements

Most common community health educator degrees

Bachelor's

70.1 %

Master's

16.6 %

Associate

9.0 %

Start to develop specific community health educator skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	10.53%
Public Health	8.94%
Health Promotion	8.69%
Community Outreach	5.89%
Disease Prevention	5.75%

Complete relevant community health educator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New community health educators learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a community health educator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real community health educator resumes.

Research community health educator duties and responsibilities

Engage with members' telephonically, using motivational interviewing techniques to assist members' in achieving their health goals.
Educate low-income populations as to proper nutrition on a budget in an effort to reduce diabetes and obesity rates.
Educate local community via verbal presentations on nutrition guidelines and neonatal screenings by creating PowerPoint presentations and visual aids.
Provide case management of enrollee participation to ensure completion of schedule mammograms and cervical testing.

Prepare your community health educator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your community health educator resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a community health educator resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable community health educator resume templates

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