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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Community engagement and volunteerism

Improving Health in the Mississippi Delta through Powerful Engagement
Describes financial, educational, and healthcare challenges experienced by residents in the Mississippi Delta. Discusses the Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation, a cancer awareness and prevention program working in rural, African American communities to create a network focused on education, outreach, and advocacy related to cancer.
Date: 10/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
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Live Healthy, Live Well, 'Live Algoma'
An overview of a rural community (Algoma, Wisconsin) coming together to set goals and work on projects focused on health and wellness. Projects included modifying an old bank to develop an alternative school called Pathfinder, building the Algoma Community Wellness Center, and collaborating with local industries and schools to create new learning opportunities for students. Algoma is a recipient of the 2017 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health Prize.
Date: 09/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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A 'Scrappy' Push for Health: 'Our Best Asset Is Our People'
Provides an overview of health challenges in Allen County, Kansas, and actions that communities in the area have taken to address them, including fundraising for a local hospital, building bike and walking trails, establishing job training programs, advocating for improved access to healthy food, and more. Allen County is a recipient of the 2017 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health Prize.
Date: 09/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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Promoting a Nutritious Diet Inside and Outside the Hospital
Highlights a rural Vermont hospital's efforts to promote healthier eating habits both inside and outside the hospital by locally sourcing food, encouraging participation in their "Ton of Tomatoes" project, and processing produce to help food-insecure community members. Discusses efforts of other hospitals promoting healthy diets, including removing unhealthy cafeteria meal options and promoting community gardens.
Date: 09/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Hospital-Community Partnerships to Build a Culture of Health: A Compendium of Case Studies
Presents insights from nine communities across the U.S. that have successful hospital-community partnerships. Each case study provides a description of the community, background information on the partner organizations, and an overview of the impacts and lessons learned. Several case studies include rural communities, rural populations, and/or rural partner organizations.
Date: 08/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Health Research & Educational Trust
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Using Community Health Workers and Volunteers to Reach Complex Needs Populations
A recorded webinar that discusses how to integrate community health workers (CHWs) and volunteers into the healthcare system to care for complex patients in hard-to-reach areas. Includes a case study from rural Montana about collaborating with volunteers to help socially isolated patients access community resources and social services.
Date: 04/2017
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
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Report on Lessons Learned from Rural Opioid Overdose Reversal Grant Recipients
Presents lessons learned from the recipients of the Rural Opioid Overdose Reversal (ROOR) Program grants. The ROOR Program was piloted by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) in 2015 and seeks to combat the opioid crisis at the local level. Report also shares resources designed to assist other rural organizations and documents the impact of the pilot year program. Provides background information on each of the 18 original grant recipients and their programs.
Date: 04/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health
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Combatting the Opioid Epidemic with Provider and Public Education
Highlights from a conversation with Fred Wells Brason II, discussing community-based efforts to reduce opioid misuse and abuse in rural communities. Brason helped found Project Lazarus in Wilkes County, North Carolina, which reduced the overdose rate in Wilkes County by 72 percent over three years. The Project Lazarus model has since spread to more than 20 states and focuses on cross-sector collaboration, public and provider education, and increasing access to treatment.
Citation: Transforming Care: Reporting on Health System Improvement
Date: 03/2017
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Commonwealth Fund
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Building a Community of Practice in Rural Medical Education: Growing Our Own Together
Describes the history of rural training track residency programs in the United States since 1986 and the growth of a healthy community of practice in rural medical education.
Author(s): Randall Longenecker, David Schmitz
Citation: Rural and Remote Health, 17(1), 4195
Date: 03/2017
Type: Document
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Thinking "Bigger" About Smaller Places: Why Rural Health Planning is Critical to Successful Rural Collective Impact Approaches
Video of a speech by the president and CEO of the Rural Policy Research Institute. Presented as part of the Rural Health Lecture Series at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina and co-sponsored by the South Carolina Office of Rural Health. Explores how rural health is affected by social determinants of health, such as availability of safe housing, employment opportunities, and healthy food.
Author(s): Charles W. Fluharty
Date: 03/2017
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organizations: Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, South Carolina Office of Rural Health
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