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The Rural Monitor
Articles by Topic: Health disparities

Staving Off One's Mortality: Rural Kidney Health and Its Disparities

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.

The Codes of Care: How Words and Numbers Have Transformative Power for Rural Healthcare

April 13, 2022
The greatest opportunity to tell the rural healthcare delivery story is an opportunity often missed — and that opportunity involves translating clinical documentation into medical codes. In addition to describing how the story and quality of clinical care gets translated from words into alphanumeric numbers, medical coding experts also pointed to aligned efforts to familiarize those in graduate medical education settings with the impact of their clinical documentation.

A New Era of Health Literacy? Expanded Definitions, Digital Influences, and Rural Inequities

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.

Out of the Shadows: Reducing the Rural Impact of Epilepsy

October 20, 2021
A common health condition, epilepsy impacts rural populations in many ways, including the ability to drive. Medical and public health experts join an advocacy organization to review the condition's impact and outline rural management approaches — including seizure first aid.

Federal Agencies' Investment in Rural Cancer Control Fosters Partnerships between Researchers and Rural Communities

July 28, 2021
Researchers and rural communities are working together to address rural cancer prevention and control, with federal funding supporting a wide range of projects. From targeting health behaviors, to making cancer screening and vaccination more accessible, to increasing rural participation in clinical trials, efforts to reduce rural cancer burden are underway across the country.

Vaccinating Rural America: Q&A with Dr. Amanda Cohn

May 12, 2021
Amanda Cohn, MD, Chief Medical Officer on CDC's COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, shares how the CDC is providing funding, creating resources, and partnering with other organizations to increase vaccination rates in underserved communities such as rural, tribal, and communities of color.