Rural Project Examples: Health occupations
Evidence-Based Examples
UAMS IDHI High-Risk Pregnancy Program
Updated/reviewed January 2024
- Need: Arkansas had high rates of low birthweight babies, and pregnant individuals in rural areas had difficulty accessing specialty obstetric care.
- Intervention: The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) created the Institute for Digital Health & Innovation (IDHI) High-Risk Pregnancy Program to increase access to care for pregnant individuals in an effort to improve outcomes for high-risk pregnancies.
- Results: The program has increased access to care and improved neonatal outcomes for rural Arkansas individuals through a variety of programs and has been recognized by various organizations as a model program.
Thomas Jefferson University's Physician Shortage Area Program
Added March 2023
- Need: More rural doctors were needed in Pennsylvania, where nearly half of the state's physicians practice in just three large metropolitan counties.
- Intervention: Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University established the Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP) in 1974 to recruit and support students who are from rural backgrounds and who wish to practice in rural communities.
- Results: Approximately 80% of PSAP alumni have remained in rural family medicine for at least 20 to 25 years after graduation.
Effective Examples
Community Health Worker-based Chronic Care Management Program
Updated/reviewed August 2024
- Need: Improve healthcare access and decrease chronic disease disparities in rural Appalachia.
- Intervention: A unique community health worker-based chronic care management program, created with philanthropy support.
- Results: After a decade of use in attending to population health needs, health outcomes, healthcare costs, in 2024, the medical condition-agnostic model has a 4-year track record of financial sustainability with recent scaling to include 31 rural counties in a 3-state area of Appalachia and recent implementation in urban areas.
The Health-able Communities Program
Updated/reviewed August 2024
- Need: Expand healthcare access for the more remote residents of 3 frontier counties in north central Idaho.
- Intervention: With early federal grant-funding, a consortium of healthcare providers and community agencies used a hybrid Community Health Worker model to augment traditional healthcare delivery services in order to offer a diverse set of health-related interventions to frontier area residents.
- Results: With additional private grant funding, success continued to build into the current model of an established and separate CHW division within the health system's population health department.
Wyoming Trauma Telehealth Treatment Clinic
Updated/reviewed February 2024
- Need: To provide psychotherapy to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
- Intervention: University of Wyoming psychology doctoral students provide psychotherapy via videoconferencing to crisis center clients in two rural locations.
- Results: Clients, student therapists, and crisis center staff were satisfied with the quality of services, and clients reported reduced symptoms of depression and PTSD.
Salud es Vida Cervical Cancer Education
Updated/reviewed January 2024
- Need: To deliver information about cervical cancer to rural Hispanic women in the United States.
- Intervention: The development of a lay health worker (promotora) curriculum that provided information on cervical cancer, HPV, and the HPV vaccine to Hispanic farmworker women living in rural southern Georgia and South Carolina.
- Results: Significant increases in post-test scores relating to cervical cancer knowledge and increases in positive self-efficacy among promotoras.
Kentucky Homeplace
Updated/reviewed October 2023
- Need: Rural Appalachian Kentucky residents have deficits in health resources and health status, including high levels of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, and diabetes.
- Intervention: Kentucky Homeplace was created as a community health worker initiative to provide health coaching, increased access to health screenings, and other services.
- Results: From July 2001 to June 2023, over 189,338 rural residents were served. Preventive health strategies, screenings, educational services, and referrals are all offered at no charge to clients.
OHSU Rural Surgery Training
Updated/reviewed October 2023
- Need: General surgeons are needed in rural communities.
- Intervention: Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is sending residents to complete a general surgery rotation in rural southern Oregon.
- Results: 39% of the graduates of the rural residency program are now practicing in a rural setting. The residents remain more likely than other OHSU residents to enter general surgery practice and to serve in a community of fewer than 50,000 people.
Rural Medical Education Program at University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford
Added October 2023
- Need: To recruit and train medical students who are committed to choosing rural practice.
- Intervention: An add-on curriculum that includes seminars, field trips, and clinical rotations in rural and underserved areas.
- Results: 436 students have graduated from the RMED program between 1997 and 2023, with 65% of program graduates practicing in towns of less than 50,000 people.
Health Coaches for Hypertension Control
Updated/reviewed September 2023
- Need: A cost-effective approach to help rural patients with hypertension learn to manage their condition.
- Intervention: Community volunteers trained as health coaches provided an 8-session hypertension management training program to hypertension patients older than 60, with an optional supplemental 8 sessions focused on nutrition and physical activity.
- Results: Just 16 weeks after the program, participants had improved systolic blood pressure, weight, and fasting glucose, greater knowledge of hypertension, and improved self-reported behaviors.
For examples from other sources, see: