Rural Project Examples Addressing Health screening

New Mexico Mobile Screening Program for Miners

Updated/reviewed April 2025

Need: To increase access to medical screening for miners in New Mexico.
Intervention: A mobile screening clinic with telemedicine capability screens miners for respiratory and other conditions.
Results: In a survey, 92% of miners reported their care as very good, while the other 8% reported it as good. The program has expanded to three other states.

Updated/reviewed March 2025

Need: To develop sustainable, community-wide prevention methods for cardiovascular diseases in order to change behaviors and healthcare outcomes in rural Maine.
Intervention: Local community groups and Franklin Memorial Hospital staff studied mortality and hospitalization rates for 40 years in this rural, low-income area of Farmington to seek intervention methods that could address cardiovascular diseases.
Results: A decline in cardiovascular-related mortality rates and improved prevention methods for hypertension, high cholesterol, and smoking.

Updated/reviewed October 2024

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 2024, over 196,801 rural residents were served. Preventive health strategies, screenings, educational services, and referrals are all offered at no charge to clients.

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 comprehensive 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.

Updated/reviewed May 2020

Need: Meeting the health needs of geriatric patients in rural Livingston County, New York.
Intervention: The Help for Seniors program was developed and using its 'vodcasts,' local EMTs were trained in geriatric screening methods and health needs treatment.
Results: In addition to developing a successful model for educating EMS personnel, the program screened over 1200 individuals and identified various risks among the geriatric population.

Updated/reviewed November 2024

Need: Farmers are highly susceptible to permanent hearing loss due to prolonged exposure to loud machinery and livestock.
Intervention: Faculty and students from the audiology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison supplied earplugs, free hearing testing, and hearing loss prevention education to attendees and participants at an annual tractor pull event.
Results: Between 2014 and 2019, the audiology team distributed more than 16,000 pairs of earplugs; attendees were receptive to the hearing loss prevention education provided by the team.

Updated/reviewed September 2023

Need: Improve screening rates for rural uninsured/underinsured patients in counties surrounding Bryan-College Station, Texas.
Intervention: An academic center's nursing and family medicine training programs partnered with its public health program to obtain state grant funds for execution of a coordinated cancer prevention and detection program.
Results: In 5 years of colorectal screening efforts, 18 cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed in addition to detection of precancerous lesions in 25% of nearly 2000 screening colonoscopies. In 3 years of women's health screening, 18 cases of breast cancer and 141 precancerous cervical lesions were also detected. Due to the initial success of the project, the program continues.

Updated/reviewed April 2025

Need: To improve and increase prevention and care services for HIV, STDs, hepatitis C, and other infectious diseases.
Intervention: PAETC-NV provides clinical and didactic trainings, conferences, technical assistance, capacity building, webinars, and other services to providers and healthcare organizations statewide.
Results: In 2024, PAETC-NV trained more than 1,800 healthcare providers across Nevada to increase clinical capacity in the care, screening, and prevention of HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases, and hepatitis C.

Added December 2024

Need: To provide basic pregnancy-related and preventive health services to women in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Intervention: A mobile clinic travels to different communities and provides basic preventive care, contraception, and pregnancy testing and ultrasounds.
Results: Since the program began, clinical staff have provided services to nearly 6,000 women.

Updated/reviewed December 2023

Need: Agencies in Schoharie County, New York were seeing a widespread trend of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in the children and families they served.
Intervention: The Schoharie ACEs Team was formed as a way to educate rural communities about ACEs, the associated brain science, and ways to build resiliency.
Results: The ACEs Team has put on 5 half-day educational conferences, 2 virtual conferences, and 10 trainings for various groups across the region. The team has also trained 3 school districts on trauma-informed care and provided resources for families exposed to trauma.