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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Culture and cultural competency

Invisible Children, Invisible Families: A Blueprint for Supporting The Child Care Needs Of American Indian And Alaska Native Families
Discusses the review of 184 Tribal Child Care Plans to understand access to culturally relevant child care and childhood education in tribal areas. Provides recommendations such as strengthening communication and collaboration between state governments and tribes, creating new approaches for tribes to serve members living off reservation, and reforming federal funding to address tribal needs using data-driven methods.
Author(s): Barb Fabre, Rob Grunewald, Linda K. Smith, Caroline Osborn
Date: 11/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Bipartisan Policy Center
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Bridging the Rural–Urban Health-Care Divide Through Community Research Partnerships
Highlights a health equity program that partners researchers with a remote indigenous community. Discusses the Siamit program in a remote, predominately Iñupiat, region of Alaska that partners with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital working to advance health equity.
Author(s): Lucas Trout, Margaret Smith, Linda Joule, Stuart Harris
Citation: Nature
Date: 11/2023
Type: Document
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RCORP: Helping Meet Rural Needs
Video series featuring the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy's Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP), a multi-year initiative that funds a range of grant programs to help rural communities treat and prevent opioid use disorder. RCORP grantees share how they have used this funding to address the needs of their communities.
Date: 11/2023
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Improving Access to Primary Care for Underserved Populations: A Review of Findings from Five Case Studies and Recommendations
Summarizes and synthesizes the findings from a series of five case studies that explored the impact of policy initiatives that aim to improve access to primary care. Covers increasing the availability of primary care providers, improving underserved communities' access to outpatient clinics, removing structural barriers to care, making primary care affordable, and improving comfort and communication between providers and patients. Presents recommendations for federal and state policymakers, primary care practices, medical schools, and other relevant stakeholders. Includes rural examples and considerations throughout.
Additional links: Executive Summary
Author(s): Maanasa Kona, Jalisa Clark, Emma Walsh-Alker
Date: 11/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Center on Health Insurance Reforms, Milbank Memorial Fund, National Institute for Health Care Reform
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Maintaining Momentum to Advance Health Equity in Adverse Environments
Discusses how to progress health equity and overcome institutional and legislative challenges. Focuses on building organizational processes, tailoring communications, committing to progress, prioritizing professional purpose and collective care, and engaging in community-level interventions, with examples from rural areas and organizations.
Author(s): Abena Ohene-Ntow, Jahira Sterling, Jamye Chapman, Shilpa Patel, Dana E. Crawford
Date: 11/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
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Fentanyl in Native Communities: Native Perspectives on Addressing the Growing Crisis
Recording of a November 8, 2023 hearing discussing fentanyl in both Native Hawaiian and American Indian and Alaska Native Communities. Features testimony from Lummi Nation, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation, and representatives of the behavioral health and public health fields. Discusses the criminal justice system, behavioral health workforce shortages, health impacts of historical trauma, and more. Captions available within the video player.
Additional links: Dr. A. Aukahi Austin Seabury, Ph.D., I Ola Lāhui, Inc. - Testimony, Dr. Claradina Soto, Ph.D., Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California - Testimony, Mr. Eric M. Gettis, Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium - Testimony, The Honorable Bryce Kirk, Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck - Testimony, The Honorable Jamie S. Azure, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota - Testimony, The Honorable Tony Hillaire, Lummi Nation - Testimony
Date: 11/2023
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
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Improving Maternity Care for Indigenous Populations
Podcast episode featuring a discussion with Tina Pattara-Lau, M.D., maternal and child health consultant with the Indian Health Service Office of Clinical and Preventive Services, and Johnna Nynas, M.D., obstetrics and gynecology specialist at Sanford Bemidji Medical Center. Describes common disparities and systemic barriers Indigenous people experience in maternity care and ways hospitals and healthcare organizations can address these challenges and provide culturally-focused care.
Date: 11/2023
Type: Audio
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Public Safety-Led Community-Oriented Overdose Prevention Efforts in Tribal Communities: Companion to the PS-COPE Toolkit
Toolkit supplement discusses community-based strategies for drug overdose prevention in tribal communities. Adapts PS-COPE framework to tribal communities social, cultural, and governing structures.
Additional links: PS-COPE Toolkit
Date: 10/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Council for Mental Wellbeing
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Community Well-Being and Civil Discourse in Nonmetropolitan Nebraska
Analyzes 2023 Nebraska Rural Poll Results related to how rural Nebraskans perceive community supports, political opportunities and discourse, and impacts of politics on community culture, engagement, and civility. Includes survey data and demographic information on survey respondents.
Author(s): Rebecca Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, et al.
Date: 10/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Culture is Prevention: A Strength Based, Culturally Grounded Journey Toward Prevention, Intervention, and Healing
Provides an overview on the Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) plan to address the crisis of missing or murdered indigenous people (MMIP). Discusses historical context and the social determinants of health (SDOH) that impact Native American/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations. Outlines culturally aware practices to support the public health pillars of prevention, intervention, healing, and delivery of ACF programs.
Date: 10/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Administration for Children and Families
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