Feature Channels: Rural Issues

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Stroke patients admitted to rural hospitals over the weekend may be at higher risk of death.

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Media invited to live Q&A on Oct 7th, 2pm EDT

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– Wake Forest Baptist Health has received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to help improve rural cardiovascular care in Wilkes County.

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A geocoding approach – linking routinely collected public health data to neighborhood socioeconomic factors – shows consistently higher rates of COVID-19 illness and death among people living in more-disadvantaged communities, reports a study in the November/December Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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When Hurricane Michael devastated rural inland communities in the Florida Panhandle in 2018, public libraries played a critical role in the natural disaster response. It also exposed the need for improved upon procedures and policies for public libraries responding to natural disasters.

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As millions of Nigerian farmers flee the militant group Boko Haram, a Cornell University-trained Nigerian scientist is providing support to create a more profitable, equitable future – especially for the many farmers who are women.

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Iowa State's rural smart shrinkage project has received a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build upon its pilot study examining whether there were towns in Iowa that have lost population but perception of quality of life has remained stable or improved.

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Alzheimer’s disease is more common in rural Appalachian Ohio communities than in other rural areas in the state – raising concerns about access to early, specialized care in a region where many residents face struggles getting the medical care they need, a new study has found.

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Nursing professor Anna Schwartz is the PI on the two-year grant, which will fund increased simulation-based education for health care providers. The education will be focused on improving treatment for obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease and behavioral and mental health care.

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In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers collected nationally representative data from 3,131 U.S. counties between 1968-2016, and looked at historical trends in death rates between older black and white adults living in different communities.

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To provide high-quality, value-based healthcare for millions of patients living in the nation’s rural communities, the White House issued an executive order on Aug. 3 that calls on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to report on ways to eliminate regulatory burdens. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) is encouraged by the order which, if considered, could increase access to quality care for patients by removing costly supervision requirements of nurse anesthetists.

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Physician anesthesiologists have been on the frontlines caring for COVID-19 patients throughout the country, but in New Hampshire physicians have innovated with a Tele-Intensive Care Unit (TeleICU) hub to collaborate with physicians in rural hospitals to ensure infected patients from across the state get critical care expertise at no expense while receiving care close to home.

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A major U.S. study reveals large gaps between urban and rural patients in quality of care received after a stroke and rates of survival. In more rural areas, the ability of hospitals to deliver advanced stroke care is lower and mortality rates substantially higher, the research shows. The analysis, involving nearly 800,000 patients, was led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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The demand for mental health services may be growing, but access to these facilities is still a challenge for many Floridians, Florida State University researchers found.

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Ohio has seen a growing disparity between abortion rates in rural and urban communities, later abortions, and less use of medication abortion care as the state has heavily regulated abortion and clinics have closed, a new study has found.

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Research and experts on the symptoms and spread of COVID-19, impact on global trade and financial markets, public health response, search for an effective treatment, and more

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Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) stand at the ready as the threat of COVID-19 threatens the nation’s rural communities. CRNAs are the primary provider of anesthesia care in rural America. The AANA has partnered with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) to promote and release an infographic.

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Rural counties in upstate New York are likely to be the state’s most vulnerable to a COVID-19 outbreak that could strain local health care infrastructure, according to an analysis by Cornell University demographers.

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In a nationwide effort to get people to stay at home and not travel between states or to vacation homes, new research out of the University of New Hampshire finds rural counties across the United States with high numbers of seasonal homes saw higher rates of COVID-19 cases than either urban or other rural areas.

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Travel restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 are making it more difficult for some heart failure patients who have artificial heart pumps to participate in follow-up care at implantation centers far from their homes. But a new study suggests there may be a viable alternative. According to University of Utah Health researchers, local doctors in rural areas who receive specialized training in managing the devices and who work in conjunction with cardiovascular experts at a major medical center can care for these patients safely and effectively.

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As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, larger cities, like New York and Seattle, are dealing with increasing numbers of infections and deaths daily.However, less populated rural areas are not immune from the disease, say two public health experts at Washington University in St. Louis and controlling it in rural America presents a unique set of challenges.

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Keck Medicine of USC study reveals that non-small cell lung cancer patients with pathologic N1 disease were less likely to receive chemotherapy if they lived in rural areas or were on Medicaid or uninsured.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will invest $176 million over 10 years to connect Missourians in rural areas to high-speed internet. But with more than 1 million residents who need access, systems expert Dr. Casey Canfield says bridging the digital divide will also take an investment in broadband research. “Analytical research can help decision-makers make more strategic investments in broadband infrastructure by using simulations to compare different approaches,” says Canfield.

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Slow Internet connections or limited access from homes in rural areas can contribute to students falling behind academically, according to a new report from Michigan State University's Quello Center.

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A new study by Washington University in St. Louis political scientists finds that how close people live to a major metropolitan area and their town’s population density play a significant role in shaping their political beliefs and partisan affiliation.

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The public has long thought that handguns are more responsible for human deaths, including suicides, than long guns such as rifles and shotguns, which have been believed to be more commonly used for hunting or protection from wild animals. But now, in an analysis of data from 16 years of gun suicides in Maryland, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers found that long guns were used more often in suicides by kids and teens than by adults, and were more commonly used in suicide by people in rural counties.

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Nearly 2,500 adolescents and adults in rural communities across South Dakota are better prepared to prevent opioid misuse through SDSU Extension’s Strengthening the Heartland Program.

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Rural areas have been hit hard by the opioid crisis, but few studies have been done to understand how to improve access to treatment and reduce the overdose death rate in these communities, according to a new study by Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University.

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Roughly one-third of young males and 1 in 10 females in rural communities have carried a handgun, reports a new University of Washington study. And, the study found, many of those rural kids started carrying as early as the sixth grade.

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“Rural healthcare systems are fighting for their lives,” according to Randall Moore, DNP, MBA, CRNA and CEO of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA). “Statistics remain grim.”

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The University of Illinois College of Medicine will reduce its tuition rates for all students, beginning with the 2020-21 academic year. The decision was approved today by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

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Residents of rural, sparsely-populated "frontier counties" in the Western U.S. face higher incidents of skin cancer and related mortality rates.

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UT Southwestern and Reimagine RedBird have signed an agreement for UT Southwestern to establish a new medical center, expanding health care services, and providing southern Dallas residents more convenient access to UT Southwestern’s best-in-class medical care in their own community.

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A recently published study shows the United States in the grip of several simultaneously occurring opioid epidemics, rather than just a single crisis. The epidemics came to light after the researchers analyzed county-level data on drug overdose deaths. The study highlights the importance of different policy responses to the epidemics rather than a single set of policies.

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Residents of rural areas are more likely to be hospitalized and to die than those who live in cities primarily because they lack access to specialists, recent research found.

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Women in rural communities experience higher rates of life-threatening complications during or after childbirth than mothers in urban cities, a new study finds.

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People in rural areas of the U.S. who receive subsidies to buy health insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplaces pay less in premiums than their counterparts in urban areas, a flip that occurred in 2018 and has been widening since, according to a new analysis.

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Residents of rural areas are more likely to be hospitalized and to die than those who live in cities primarily because they lack access to specialists, according to research in Health Affairs.

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Keck Medicine of USC announces the launch of the USC Epilepsy Care Consortium, a unique partnership of six independent epilepsy centers serving patients in Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Central Valley.

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A new report analyzing decades of public opinion surveys reveals that the public’s trust in scientists has remained stable and high over decades.

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Last spring’s historic flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers may have distributed toxic contaminants along wide flood routes. Researchers know little about how these materials may affect public health and safety in rural and urban areas. But a group of geologists and geological engineers from Missouri University of Science and Technology is working to find out.

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Delivering palliative care to rural, frontier areas is difficult, but the lack of infrastructure makes developing programs for three Northern Plains Indian tribes even more challenging.

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New research has found that people who are illiterate, meaning they never learned to read or write, may have nearly three times greater risk of developing dementia than people who can read and write. The study is published in the November 13, 2019, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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The Virginia Murray Sowell Center for Research and Education in Sensory Disabilities at Texas Tech University will train scholars as teachers of students with visual impairments, or orientation and mobility specialists, and allow them to complete a master’s degree in special education.