Healthy Opportunities in Madison County - WNC Health Policy Podcast Ep. 25
Image Credit: Ameena Batada, NC Center for Health and Wellness
WNC is home to many innovative strategies for navigating complex health challenges. Two of those include the role of Community Health Workers in the healthcare workforce and the Healthy Opportunities Pilot, which abruptly ended in the summer of 2025 due to the General Assembly's failure to pass a budget.
Image credit: Alex Mitchell, NC Center for Health and Wellness
In this episode we hear from Jacque Ballard, a community health worker who has worked in both Madison and Yancey Counties and recently supported research by the Health Policy Research Consortium to understand the impact of HOP's end. This past April, Jacque recently led community partners and local leaders on a community tour in Marshall, NC, that provided attendees an opportunity to learn, connect, and reflect on how HOP supported local families, as well as what has changed since the program ended. The event offered firsthand accounts and facilitated discussion to help generate a deeper understanding of the program’s role in improving health and well-being across the community.
Join us as we hear with Jacque about the work of community health workers, challenges experienced in WNC, and the impact of HOP's end.
Resources
Become a Community Health Worker
🎧 Learn more in our past conversation with the president of the NC Community Health Worker Association, Honey Yang Estrada
Listen via the audio bar above, or via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
About the WNC Health Policy Podcast: In each installment, we speak about different public health strategies for improving health and well-being in Western North Carolina (WNC). The WNC HPl is a collaboration between the NC Center for Health & Wellness at UNCA and MAHEC, with generous support from the Dogwood Health Trust.
Individual opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this podcast are those of the author(s)/interviewee(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the WNC Health Policy Initiative or its host institutions of the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA), Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) or our funders.
