April 5, 2023
As Program Chief of the Office of Rural Mental Health Research, Dawn Morales, PhD, discusses recent stressors such as the financial impact of natural disasters on farmers and ranchers as well as the loss of revered elders in indigenous communities due to COVID-19. She also stresses the importance of cultural competency in mental healthcare and rural-specific protective factors.
October 26, 2022
After a 1965 public law created the Medicare and Medicaid programs, many rural residents insured by these government health programs were unable to access care. This challenge was remedied by another public law: the Rural Health Clinic Services Act of 1977. Using a historical framework, rural health policy experts, researchers, and clinicians reviewed the Act's impact on outpatient healthcare delivery in rural America.
October 26, 2022
Over 5,200 rural organizations participate in the Rural Health Clinics program, a reimbursement model dedicated to rural low-volume healthcare delivery and now in its 45th year. The National Association of Rural Health Clinics — in its 30th year — is a membership organization that emerged as the program increased its participants. Bill Finerfrock, association cofounder and its recently retired executive director, shared the group's origin story as well as touchpoints from his own career.
October 5, 2022
To keep 24/7 urgent care available in Maine's Moose River Valley, a new pilot program lets paramedics take shifts staffing the local health center after-hours and on weekends.
September 21, 2022
As vice president for research, innovation, and evaluation at Texas-based Episcopal Health Foundation, Shao-Chee Sim, PhD, discusses how philanthropic organizations can make small rural research investments — and, in particular, leverage cross-funder collaboration — that impact not only funders themselves, but also healthcare delivery systems and the rural Americans they serve.
July 13, 2022
Rural mortality rates had been improving until recent years when a perfect storm of the opioid epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic converged to reverse these gains. However, federally funded efforts have sought to stem the tide through community, clinical, and policy efforts.
June 15, 2022
For the 240,000 rural Americans with complete kidney failure, it's likely that very few knew they even had kidney disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kidney disease is usually silent; 90% of people with kidney disease don't know they have it. With research pointing to the high costs of kidney disease for pediatric and adult patients alike — mostly covered by Medicare — experts and researchers discuss rural disparities around access to disease-stabilizing treatment and to renal replacement therapies.
May 4, 2022
A new library initiative in Texas and an established crisis line in Georgia are bringing mental health services directly to rural residents through teams of lay mental health workers and mental health professionals.
March 9, 2022
Health literacy experts share that as healthcare delivery moves from bedside to webside, new opportunities for health literacy education arise. Emphasizing the need to swap medical jargon for plain language, educators outlined best practices for teaching health literacy principles to healthcare profession trainees.
February 2, 2022
The priority for rural population health is access, including access to health information needed to make personal health decisions. Two of the nation's health literacy experts join a federal agency official to review current rural challenges of accessing health information that is clear and usable. Along with an exploration of digital health literacy, recently expanded definitions of health literacy are discussed.
