Rural teens face a higher prevalence of behavior problems, anxiety, and suicide rates than their urban peers, but there are fewer behavioral health providers in rural areas to help these teens. A trauma therapist in rural West Virginia and a school program in rural Wisconsin incorporate teenagers’ strengths and interests and connect them with trusted adults in order to improve their mental health.
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Rural healthcare delivery experts continue to emphasize the critical need for rural workforce. Using uniquely designed combined baccalaureate/medical degree programs, two university-based medical education teams shared not only the successes in training and placing physicians in rural areas — but the unique impact their service-oriented students and programs have on their academic environment.
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Kim Barber Tieman, program director for health and human services for the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, shares how her foundation set up a COVID-19 grant capture team and funded grant writers to help organizations navigate and apply for federal funding opportunities. In addition, her foundation worked with organizations and funded three mobile COVID testing units to better reach communities of color.
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Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) can offer flexible financing options, but many operate at full capacity and there is a general lack of awareness of these institutions in rural spaces. Foundation and CDFI leaders share their perspectives about the difference CDFIs can make on rural health outcomes.
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Chronic obstructive lung disease, or COPD, is a disease with a stronghold in rural America: almost double the prevalence and double the mortality rates compared to large urban areas. Though it is a condition with no cure, it’s a condition that has treatments — and hope — making proper diagnosis by spirometry imperative.
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As more healthcare delivery efforts include social risk assessments, the impact of the social determinants of health is better understood. Rural clinicians, researchers, and other experts share perspectives on social isolation and loneliness.
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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is number 3 on the cause of death list. In rural America, it’s the sole major chronic disease with increasing death rates. In May 2017, the COPD National Action Plan, a “blueprint for a multi-faceted, unified fight against the disease” was released. Rural stakeholders share perspectives of just how rural Americans with COPD might benefit from the plan’s rural touchpoints.
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Public agencies and private non-profit groups have mutual interests in improving the health of rural Americans. The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy and philanthropy organizations worked together to create a unique funding opportunity, the Rural Health Care Coordination Network Partnership Program. Two health care organizations and their philanthropy partners share how coordinated efforts benefit patients with diabetes, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
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Provides an update on three obesity programs previously featured in the Rural Monitor. Includes programs in West Virginia, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.
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