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Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Nebraska Models and Innovations

These stories feature model programs and successful rural projects that can serve as a source of ideas. Some of the projects or programs may no longer be active. Read about the criteria and evidence-base for programs included.

Effective Examples

Updated/reviewed November 2024

  • Need: To encourage farmers to make health and safety changes on their farms.
  • Intervention: Farm Dinner Theater is an event in which farmers and their families watch three 10-minute plays covering health and safety topics and then discuss solutions to the issues addressed in each.
  • Results: In a study, farmers who attended the plays were more likely to make changes and tell others what they learned, compared to farmers who received an educational packet with the same information.

Other Project Examples

Updated/reviewed April 2025

  • Need: To reduce teen dating violence in middle schools, high schools, and youth organizations by promoting healthy relationship behaviors and fostering a culture of respect among adolescents.
  • Intervention: Jana's Campaign offers prevention programs, including curricular and co-curricular activities, to highlight the 'red flags' and underlying causes of unhealthy dating relationships.
  • Results: Since 2013, 677 middle and high schools and more than 102,350 students in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and Washington State have benefited from these programs.

Updated/reviewed June 2024

  • Need: To increase access to health information in low-income and rural communities throughout the Midwest.
  • Intervention: The University of Missouri School of Information Science & Learning Technologies developed Catalysts for Community Health (C4CH), an interdisciplinary program designed to train Master of Library and Information Science students to expand health information resources for underserved communities.
  • Results: The cohort of 10 students graduated in summer of 2022.

Updated/reviewed June 2022

  • Need: Evidenced-based intervention to improve function and quality of life for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other chronic lower respiratory conditions.
  • Intervention: Pulmonary rehabilitation program implementation in 1989.
  • Results: Compared to a national average of only about 3% of referred Medicare beneficiaries actually enrolling in pulmonary rehabilitation, 60% of the program's referred patients enroll. Averaging around 15 patients/year completing the program, a large combined cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation maintenance population averages 8,000 visits/year.
Last Reviewed: 12/18/2024