- Rural Children Struggle to Access Hospital Services, Say Researchers
- Outlining the Intersection between Health Care and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People
- Biden-Harris Administration Announces Critical More Than $1.5 Billion State and Tribal Opioid Response Funding Opportunities
- RPHARM Program Fulfills Need for Rural Pharmacists
- Farmers Don't Do Mental Health
- A Pilot Program in Rural Vermont Hopes to Build a Blueprint for Substance Abuse Recovery
- Rural Telehealth Extension Reintroduced in Congress
- Students From Across the State Emphasized the Need for Mental Health Resources in Rural Alaska During a Conference
- The South Was the Center of Rural Population Growth Last Year
- How HHS SUD Confidentiality Regulations Will Impact Rural Providers
- VA Announces Expansion of "Close to Me" Cancer Program as Part of the Cancer Moonshot, Bringing Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Closer to Thousands of Veterans
- Navajo Psychiatrist Bridges Gaps Between Native American Culture and Behavioral Health Care
- Biden-Harris Administration Releases National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and First-Ever Federal Action Plan
- Biden Administration Sets Higher Staffing Mandates. Most Nursing Homes Don't Meet Them.
- Rural Communities Face Primary Care Physician Shortage
Year of the Nurse and the Midwife
The World Health Organization announced 2020 as the start of a major global effort to highlight the shortage of these health workers and celebrate their work. Read more here.
The Rural Opportunity Map
A unique collection of data and tools, the Rural Opportunity Map uses data sets on broadband infrastructure, education attainment, young companies, and other local assets. A map section for local leaders is designed to help them discover and learn from peer communities. Developing sections help decode the many definitions of rural across federal entities, help investors find options in rural Opportunity Zones, and track trends in rural health care. Read more here.
Rural EMS: Critical services hang in the balance
Provider shortages and limited access to health services are not new concerns for rural health systems, but access to emergency medical services (EMS) has also reached a critical juncture. Read more here.
Promoting a framework for age-friendly health systems
Rural health care settings present unique challenges to older adults seeking care. A focus on social determinants of health beginning with what matters to older adults can be game-changing in providing age-friendly care. Read more here.
Approaching the issue of rural social isolation
The complex problem of rural social isolation requires open-minded, unconventional solutions. From ad-hoc, online communities to creative grant funding, health care providers and rural residents can address the stigma of social isolation and depression. Read more here.
Training to Identify and Respond to Human Trafficking
The Administration on Children and Families created SOAR to Health and Wellness Training to create a community-level public health approach to individuals who have experienced trafficking. SOAR – an acronym for Stop, Observe, Ask, Respond – provides an online training curriculum in English and Spanish with course credits available. Resources and trainings for indigenous populations are available through SOAR for Native Communities.
Nominations for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is seeking nominations to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. Specific areas of expertise being sought include public health, health equity and the reduction of health disparities, application of science to health policy, dissemination and implementation, behavioral medicine, and communication of scientific findings to diverse audiences. Nominations of individuals clinical expertise in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology will receive the strongest consideration. Read more here.
Declining Endoscopic Care by Family Physicians in Both Rural and Urban Areas
A paper from the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center explores the decline in the percentage of family physicians providing endoscopic services overall and in urban and rural areas. This has implications on the availability of colonoscopies, endoscopies, and flexible sigmoidoscopies in areas that lack specialists who perform such services. Read more here.
Early-Career and Graduating Physicians More Likely to Prescribe Buprenorphine
A paper from the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center shows differences in rates of prescribing buprenorphine and intentions to prescribe buprenorphine between early- and mid-to-late career family physicians, based on a survey of physicians taking a certification examination. Read more here.
Practice Predictors of Buprenorphine Prescribing by Family Physicians
Physicians may prescribe buprenorphine if they obtain a waiver, but relatively few family physicians do so. This paper from the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center examines the association between practice characteristics and the likelihood that a family physician will prescribe buprenorphine, based on a survey of physicians seeking board certification in family medicine. Read more here.