A community health worker takes basic health services out of the clinic and into households. In South Africa they are a core part of the ward-based outreach approach to primary health care, visiting homes, tracing patients, supporting treatment adherence and referring people who need clinical care.
This guide sets out community health worker duties and responsibilities, the daily routine, and the boundaries of the role. It sits within the wider job duties guide. It describes the occupation for employment purposes and is not clinical guidance.
What Does a Community Health Worker Do?
A community health worker is assigned households in a defined area and visits them regularly. They screen for common conditions, check that people on chronic or tuberculosis treatment are taking it, give health education, and refer anyone who needs a nurse or doctor to the clinic.
The most important part of the role is knowing its limit. A community health worker is not a nurse: they do not diagnose, prescribe or treat. Their value lies in reaching people who would otherwise never present at a facility, and in referring them correctly and promptly when something is wrong.
Key Community Health Worker Duties and Responsibilities
- Conducting household visits to allocated families in a defined catchment area.
- Registering households and maintaining accurate household and client records.
- Screening household members for common conditions using the approved tools.
- Referring clients who need clinical assessment to the clinic and following up.
- Supporting treatment adherence for chronic conditions, tuberculosis and HIV.
- Tracing patients who have missed appointments or defaulted on treatment.
- Providing health education on nutrition, hygiene, immunisation and prevention.
- Supporting maternal, child and infant health follow-up in the household.
- Identifying social issues and referring to social workers or support services.
- Completing daily registers, visit records and monthly statistical returns.
- Reporting to and taking direction from the outreach team leader, who is a professional nurse.
- Maintaining client confidentiality and treating households with respect.
Daily Tasks of a Community Health Worker
- Start of day: report to the team leader, receive the day’s visit list and any tracing priorities.
- Morning: conduct household visits, screen and educate, record findings at each home.
- Midday: follow up defaulters and missed appointments, accompany urgent referrals where needed.
- Afternoon: complete registers and referral forms, and hand over cases needing clinical attention.
- Weekly and monthly: attend team meetings and submit statistical returns.
Community Health Worker Skills and Competencies
- Community knowledge: knowing the area and being trusted in it.
- Communication: explaining health information in the household’s own language and terms.
- Recognising danger signs: knowing what needs referral today rather than at the next visit.
- Record keeping: accurate registers, since the statistics drive programme planning.
- Confidentiality: health status handled discreetly in a community where people know each other.
- Resilience: working alone, on foot, in difficult household circumstances.
Community Health Worker Duties by Workplace or Industry
Ward-Based Outreach Teams
The standard public health setting: a defined ward, allocated households, a professional nurse as team leader, and prescribed registers and monthly returns feeding district health reporting.
Non-Profit and Donor-Funded Programmes
Duties are shaped by the programme’s focus, often HIV, tuberculosis or maternal health, with targets and reporting tied to donor indicators and fixed-term contracts.
Clinic-Attached Roles
Working from a facility, duties include supporting patient flow, health education in the waiting area, appointment reminders and follow-up of defaulters identified from clinic records.
Home-Based Care Programmes
Duties overlap with care work, adding basic personal care support to chronically ill or bedridden clients under a care plan, with clear boundaries about what may not be performed.
Community Health Worker Duties for a CV
Give the number of households, the programme focus and your referral or adherence results. Use the duties for a CV guide for the method.
- Conducted household visits to 250 allocated households in a ward-based outreach team.
- Screened household members and referred an average of 30 clients a month to the clinic for assessment.
- Traced treatment defaulters and supported adherence, contributing to improved follow-up rates in the ward.
- Maintained household registers and submitted monthly statistical returns to the team leader on time.
Related Job Roles and Responsibilities
These guides cover the roles and next steps most closely related to this one.
- Care Worker duties and responsibilities
- Caregiver duties and responsibilities
- Social Worker duties and responsibilities
- Nurse duties and responsibilities
- Healthcare and care duties
- Job description duties and responsibilities
Frequently Asked Questions About Community Health Worker Duties
What are the duties of a community health worker?
Visiting allocated households, registering families and keeping records, screening for common conditions, referring clients to the clinic, supporting treatment adherence, tracing defaulters, providing health education, supporting maternal and child health follow-up, and completing registers and monthly returns.
What are three duties of community health workers?
If reduced to three: visit and screen households in the allocated area, support treatment adherence and trace defaulters, and refer anyone needing clinical care to the facility while recording what was found.
Can a community health worker give medication?
No. Community health workers support adherence by reminding, encouraging and checking, but they do not diagnose, prescribe or administer medication. Anything clinical is referred to the professional nurse or the facility.
What training does a community health worker need?
Programmes generally require a basic level of schooling plus completion of the relevant community health worker or home-based care training, with ongoing in-service training provided. Requirements are set by the employing programme or department.
This page describes the occupation for employment purposes only. It is not clinical guidance and it is not medical advice. Scope of practice is set by the employing programme, the supervising professional nurse and departmental policy, and those take precedence over this guide.
Last reviewed: 2 September 2026