| Course | HW106 Health and Wellness Profession and Career Planning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Wellness role comparison |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Health and Wellness |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HW106 Unit 2
Same Client, Three Different Jobs: A Unit 2 Comparison of Health Coaches, Community Health Workers and Health Education Specialists
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HW106: Health and Wellness Profession and Career Planning
Unit 2 Wellness Role Comparison
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The student, client and settings are composite; the roles, standards and sources cited are real in outline and should be checked against current requirements.
The Client
Rosa, a composite client, works as a school cafeteria manager in Tucson. Her primary care clinic diagnosed type 2 diabetes in the spring. She was given a prescription, a printed handout and a follow-up visit in three months. She wants to avoid insulin, has little time and worries about cost.
The Health and Wellness Coach
A coach meets Rosa weekly by phone for twelve weeks through her employer's wellness benefit. The coach does not tell her what to eat. Instead, the coach asks what matters most to her, helps her choose one goal at a time, such as walking twenty minutes after lunch on workdays, and checks progress, barriers and confidence each week. Coaching, in one primer for clinicians, is a client-centered partnership that helps people reach goals they choose, working alongside medical care rather than in place of it (Perlman & Abu Dabrh, 2020). Matthews et al. (2024) argue that lasting behavior change depends on combining several elements, including the person's own motivation, skills and support, rather than relying on information alone, which is the gap coaching aims to fill.
The coach works within a defined scope: coaching is not medical advice, therapy or nutrition prescription, and a good coach refers Rosa back to her clinic or to a dietitian when questions go beyond that line.
The Community Health Worker
A community health worker employed by the clinic visits Rosa at home after she misses her first lab appointment. The CHW learns that the lab is two bus transfers away and that Rosa's pharmacy charges more than she expected. The CHW helps her enroll in a prescription assistance program, arranges a lab visit at a closer site and connects her with a Spanish-language diabetes class at a church nearby. The CHW also explains her medications in plain terms, checks whether she has a working glucose meter and reports back to the care team. CHWs are trusted members of the community they serve, and their work blends navigation, social support, basic education and advocacy.
The Health Education Specialist
A health education specialist at the county health department designs the eight-week diabetes self-management class that Rosa eventually attends. The specialist assesses community needs, writes learning objectives, chooses materials at an appropriate reading level, recruits participants, teaches or trains others to teach and evaluates whether participants' knowledge and behaviors change. Rosa meets this professional in a group, not one-on-one.
The coach asks Rosa what she wants, the community health worker asks what is in her way and the educator asks what the whole neighborhood needs to know.
Comparing the Roles
Purpose. Coaching supports self-directed behavior change; community health work connects people to care and removes barriers; health education builds knowledge and skills, usually for groups and populations.
Methods. Coaches rely on questioning, goal setting and accountability, often drawing on motivational interviewing. CHWs rely on outreach, navigation, home visits and relationships. Educators rely on program planning, curriculum design, instruction and evaluation.
Training and credentials. National board certification for health and wellness coaches requires completing an approved training program, documenting coaching sessions and passing an exam. CHW training is often shorter and community-based, and some states offer or require certification; Arizona offers voluntary certification through its health department. Health education specialists usually need a bachelor's degree, and many hold a national certification from the commission that certifies health education specialists. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a high school diploma as typical entry education for CHWs and a bachelor's degree for health education specialists (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026a; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026b).
Settings. Coaches work for employers, insurers, clinics and in private practice, often remotely. CHWs work for clinics, hospitals, health departments and community organizations, usually in person. Educators work in health departments, hospitals, schools, nonprofits and workplaces.
Pay and growth. Median pay was $51,850 for CHWs and $64,070 for health education specialists in 2025, with projected growth of 13 and 6 percent from 2025 to 2035 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026a; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026b). The bureau does not track health coaches as a separate occupation.
What the Comparison Leaves Out
A comparison by duties and credentials misses how each role feels from the inside. Coaches often work alone, by phone, with clients they never meet in person, and their success depends on building rapport through a voice and a schedule. Community health workers often work in the heat, on buses or in cars, in homes that may be crowded or unsafe, and they carry the weight of problems they cannot fix, such as a lost job or an eviction. Health education specialists spend much of their time planning, writing, recruiting and evaluating, and less time with individuals than many expect. Pay also differs within each role by employer: a hospital may pay a CHW more than a small nonprofit, and a coaching job with an insurer may pay more than private practice. These differences matter as much as the formal requirements when choosing a career, which is why the course asks for interviews and job postings as well as definitions.
Where the Roles Overlap
All three teach, all three support behavior change and all three depend on trust. A CHW may use coaching techniques; an educator may coach individuals after a class; a coach may help a client find community resources. The differences lie in emphasis, training and who pays for the work.
What the Comparison Means for Me
My fitness work already involves coaching-like conversations and group instruction, which fit coaching and education. My Spanish and my roots on the south side of Tucson fit community health work, where trust within the community is the core qualification. The comparison does not settle my choice, but it shows that I would need a certification for coaching, a bachelor's degree for education and community relationships for CHW work, and that the last of these I already have.
Conclusion
Health and wellness coaches, community health workers and health education specialists all help people like Rosa live with chronic disease, but they do it differently: by supporting her own goals, by removing barriers around her and by educating her community. Their training, credentials, settings and pay differ accordingly. Seeing them side by side helps me ask which kind of help I most want to give.
References
Matthews, J. A., Matthews, S., Faries, M. D., & Wolever, R. Q. (2024). Supporting sustainable health behavior change: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality & Outcomes, 8(3), 263-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2023.10.002
Perlman, A. I., & Abu Dabrh, A. M. (2020). Health and wellness coaching in serving the needs of today's patients: A primer for healthcare professionals. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2164956120959274
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026a). Community health workers. In Occupational outlook handbook. U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/community-health-workers.htm
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026b). Health education specialists. In Occupational outlook handbook. U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/health-educators.htm
The Purdue Global HW106 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 usually sets two or three wellness jobs side by side. Expect to describe what each professional does, how they are trained and credentialed, where they work and how they are paid. Instructors want differences made concrete, so a client or scenario followed through each role tends to score better than parallel lists. A source on each role, such as federal career data or a professional primer, supports the comparison. Most versions also want the shared ground between roles and a word on how the comparison bears on your own path. Because coaching, education and community health work share vocabulary, the paper should say precisely what separates them, such as who sets the goals and who is served, an individual or a whole community.
Inside the HW106 Unit 2 example
The paper introduces Rosa, a composite client with new diabetes, then follows her to a coach, a community health worker and a health educator, each in their own section. The coach section uses the coaching primer and Matthews and colleagues to explain goal setting and scope limits. The CHW section shows a home visit, prescription help and a nearby class. The educator section describes designing and evaluating a group program. A highlighted line sums up each role by the question it asks. A comparison section covers purpose, methods, credentials, settings and federal pay and growth figures. A section on what a duties comparison leaves out, an overlap section and a reflection on the writer's fitness background and Spanish close the paper.
Reading the HW106 Unit 2 grading rubric
Role comparisons are graded mostly on accuracy, concreteness and insight. Each role should be described correctly, including its credential and the body behind it. A shared scenario earns credit because it shows the differences in action. The comparison should cover several dimensions, from purpose to pay, with sources for the figures. Graders value attention to overlap and to the realities of each job beyond its formal requirements. Connecting the comparison to the student's own background shows the course's purpose has been met. Headings that make each role easy to find help readers. Each source, including federal data, needs an APA 7 entry, and figures should carry their year.
HW106 Unit 2 help from the desk
Comparison papers often describe all three roles as helping people be healthier and never say what each one actually does differently. Another frequent problem is treating any online training as a recognized credential. Some students list duties copied from job postings without a scenario to make them meaningful. Pay figures are sometimes given for roles the government does not track separately, such as coaches, without saying where the number came from. Papers that skip overlap or day-to-day realities miss part of the picture. Before writing, pick one client situation and ask what each professional would do first. Send the roles you are comparing and your scenario, and the paper can be drafted around them.
Get an HW106 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Share the roles and the comparison instructions with the rubric. A custom comparison separates the roles by what each does and requires. Turnaround is 24-48h, free the first time. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More HW106 papers and BS in Health and Wellness samples
- HW106 Unit 1: Wellness Career Introduction Post
- HW106 Unit 3: Ecological Model Application Paper
- HW106 Unit 4: Credentials and Standards Summary
- HW106 Unit 5: Community Health Worker Integration Analysis
- HW106 Unit 6: Labor Market Data Worksheet
- HW106 Unit 7: Career Alignment Self-assessment
- HW106 Unit 8: Professional Networking Plan
- HW106 Unit 9: Résumé and Portfolio
- HW106 Unit 10: Career Plan
- HW310 Unit 2: Modality Description Paper
- HD499 Unit 2: Project Scope Proposal
- HW315 Unit 2: Model Comparison Paper
- HD480 Unit 2: Audience Segmentation Profile
HW106 Unit 2 questions, answered
Which roles are usually compared?
Often health and wellness coach, community health worker, health education specialist and fitness professional.
How do I tell coaching from education?
Coaching helps a client set and pursue their own goals; education delivers information and skills, often to groups.
Should the comparison include pay?
It can, but the main focus is duties, training and credentials.
Where can I find a free HW106 Unit 2 sample paper?
The complete HW106 Unit 2 wellness role comparison is on this page, following one client with diabetes through a health coach, a community health worker and a health education specialist.
How does the HW106 Unit 2 sample tell the roles apart?
By the question each asks: the coach asks what the client wants, the community health worker asks what is in her way and the educator asks what her whole community needs to know.