Presenter: Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, CWP
Format: Video of slides with synchronized audio

Health coaching is a rapidly growing nonclinical health profession that offers an accessible, client- centered, holistic approach to changing attitudes, behavior, and lifestyles habits of individuals for improved health and well-being. However, health coaching is primarily utilized as an out-of-pocket expense by educated, affluent, employed individuals who access employer health insurance programs with coaching options. It has not been available to the poorest among us, since it is an emerging health profession, without Medicare/Medicaid insurance reimbursement. Yet the lower the socioeconomic status in terms of income, education, and occupation, the poorer the state of health, including a disproportionate rise in chronic disease rates.  Low socioeconomic status directly affects behavior that affects health and illness. Integrative health/wellness coaching for better management of chronic conditions, therefore, offers a compassionate and effective intervention for under-represented, marginalized and underserved populations. This presentation reports the findings of a peer-reviewed, published case report, based upon an Aetna Foundation grant, that brought integrative wellness coaching (IWC) to homeless and low-income individuals. The project was undertaken to assess the feasibility of the health coaching model and general responsiveness of the individuals and families who received it. The IWC model is taught within the M.A. degree program in Integrative Health Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, a member of the National Consortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches.

Learning Objectives
- Define and describe the practice of health and wellness coaching, as supported by the peer-reviewed literature
- Identify core elements of integrative health/wellness coaching for underserved populations
- Describe the stages of intervention for health behavior change for at-risk and street-dwelling adult populations, and potential impact of such interventions.
- Examine preferences and biases as coaches engage with values-driven motivation models for behavior change
- Assess the social determinants that serve as upstream barriers for downstream healthy lifestyle change.
- Identify principles of communicating with cultural sensitivity and reflect core values in working with marginalized, under-represented or underserved populations.