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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Social determinants of health

State Approaches for Addressing Rural Social Determinants of Health
Recommends state and federal tactics to improve social determinants of health and address rural health disparities. Covers transportation, broadband, income, and educational attainment.
Sponsoring organization: Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
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CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI)
Identifies communities that may need support to prepare for and recover from disasters. Offers rankings by census tract based on 16 U.S. Census indicators focused on four themes: socioeconomic status; household composition; race, ethnicity, and language; and housing and transportation.
Additional links: County Maps, Interactive Map
Sponsoring organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Community Resilience Estimates
Offers state and county profiles focused on community resilience, the capacity of community members to deal with and recover from a disaster and its related health, social, and economic impacts. Identifies risk factors for households and individuals, such as poverty level, unemployment, language barriers, and health status, and shares the risk factor results by county within each state and by census tract within each county. Also provides access to a supplemental data set focused on social vulnerability and equity.
Sponsoring organization: U.S. Census Bureau
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Multidimensional Index of Deep Disadvantage
Categorizes counties and cities based on an index that examines disadvantage based on health indicators, poverty, and social mobility data. Provides a profile for each county that includes its rural/urban status, population, and index-related indicators. Identifies the 100 most disadvantaged counties.
Additional links: Full Data Set, Understanding Communities of Deep Disadvantage: An Introduction
Sponsoring organizations: Princeton University, University of Michigan
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Washington Health Data Visualization
An interactive tool providing access to maps, charts, and graphs on a variety of health data by topic for Washington State and counties. Topics include leading causes of death, opioid prescriptions, opioid morbidity and mortality, immunizations, HIV, social determinants of health, and population characteristics.
Sponsoring organization: Washington State Department of Health
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Culture Care Connection: Rural Minnesotans
Provides information and data to help healthcare providers recognize and understand the importance of culture when providing healthcare to populations living in rural Minnesota. Discusses population characteristics, health disparities, social determinants of health, social diversity, diet, medical care, mental health, and leading causes of death in rural areas of the state.
Sponsoring organization: Stratis Health
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PubMed Search: Rural Social Determinants of Health
Searches PubMed's collection of journal article citations on social determinants of health impacting rural residents. Includes coverage of poverty, unemployment, housing, environmental health, educational status, and health literacy.
Sponsoring organization: U.S. National Library of Medicine
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Virginia Health Opportunity Index
Allows the user to examine health opportunities and challenges at the census tract level, by county, or by independent city for the state of Virginia. Utilizes 13 indicators addressing the social determinants of health. These indicators are grouped into four profiles or measures focused on the natural and social environment, consumer resources, economic opportunities, and access to health services.
Sponsoring organization: Virginia Department of Health: Office of Health Equity
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Creating a Culture of Health in Appalachia: Disparities and Bright Spots
An initiative focused on health outcomes in Appalachian communities. Provides access to health disparities data on health status, healthcare delivery, and social determinants of health (SDOH) indicators for counties within the rural Appalachian region. Also identifies and provides case studies of "Bright Spots", counties in the region with better-than-expected health outcomes.
Sponsoring organizations: Appalachian Regional Commission, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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The Opportunity Atlas
Interactive mapping tool that provides estimates for children's future earnings, incarceration rates, and other outcomes in adulthood by parental income, race, and gender by census tract. For some low population census tracts, there may be insufficient data to allow for all features.
Sponsoring organizations: Brown University, Harvard University, U.S. Census Bureau
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