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Rural Health
News by Topic: Appalachia

Jun 2, 2023 - Examines 2021 data from the Ohio Department of Health showing that suicide rates in Ohio is rising after 2 years of decline. 14 of the 15 counties with the highest suicide rates was rural, and 9 of those 14 are in Appalachia. Local behavioral health leaders cite access issues, unreliable broadband hampering telehealth, and multiple social determinates of health as drivers of the increase. Highlights work being done to decrease stigma.
Source: NBC4
May 22, 2023 - The Appalachian Community Cancer Alliance has launched a lung cancer screening initiative to improve cancer care in rural Appalachia. Through partnerships with local advocates in communities at risk, the initiative will focus on developing and implementing new patient-centric approaches to promote the importance of and raise awareness about lung cancer screening in rural Appalachia.
Source: The ASCO Post
May 17, 2023 - Highlights historic efforts to address multigenerational poverty in Appalachia, the rural West, Indian Country, South Texas, and the Mississippi Delta. Discusses higher rates of poor health outcomes in these areas.
Source: NPQ
May 16, 2023 - Describes the differing opinions about how opioid settlement money should be used in rural Greene County in northeastern Tennessee. Some feel the money should be used directly for mental health and addiction treatment, while others say the county has for years funded programs to help people harmed by addiction, and settlement money can legitimately be used to pay down debt incurred partly due to those programs.
Source: KFF Health News
Apr 10, 2023 - The University of Kentucky Center of Excellence in Rural Health has three new programs that will impact future healthcare workers in the Appalachian mountains. The programs are the Appalachian Center for Assistive Technology, the Kentucky Homeplace Community Health Worker Training Center, and the Systems Integrated Modeling and Simulation Lab.
Source: WYMT