Since 1990, Rural Hospital Closures Have Increasingly Occurred in Counties that Are More Urbanized, Diverse, and Economically Unequal.  Researchers at the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center found that closures were more likely to occur in a county with more non-white residents.  Between 1990 and 2020, rural closure counties became more economically unequal, with higher unemployment, lower per capita income, and lower median household incomes compared with rural counties overall.

Rural Health Care Services Outreach Program Directory, 2021-2025.  Now available on the Rural Health Information Hub, the directory provides contact information and a brief overview for each of the federal program’s 61 currently funded initiatives.  This includes 45 initiatives working to address a wide variety of rural healthcare needs through funding under the program’s general outreach track, and 16 initiatives funded under the program’s Healthy Rural Hometown Initiative (HRHI) track focusing on efforts to improve health outcomes and reduce rural health disparities related to the five leading causes of avoidable death for people living in rural areas: heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke.

NQF Core Set of Rural Health Measures – April 12. The National Quality Forum (NQF) is convening a Rural Health Advisory Group funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to update an existing core set of rural health measures established in 2018. A public commenting period is now open on a draft environmental scan (PDF) that provides an overview of updates to measures in the existing core measure set and identifies potential measures for addition based on rural-relevant topics and emerging issues. NQF is seeking comments from a diverse range of stakeholders on commonly used and high-priority measures in rural settings, as well as feedback on the challenges of implementing these measures.

HRSA Announcement on Hospital Reinstatement into the 340B Drug Pricing Program. Section 121 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, signed into law on March 15, 2022, permits certain hospitals to be reinstated into the 340B Drug Pricing Program. The hospital must be classified as a disproportionate share hospital, sole community hospital, rural referral center, children’s hospital, or free-standing cancer hospital and meet other specified conditions to qualify. This includes the condition that the hospital’s termination must have been as a result of actions taken by or other impacts on the hospital in response to, or as a result of, the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.

The Implications of Long COVID for Rural Communities. While the definition of post-COVID-19 effects has evolved, experts have identified a range of health conditions that may include shortness of breath, chronic fatigue, tachycardia, exercise intolerance, and cognitive dysfunction. In an open-access article from The Journal of Rural Health, researchers report an estimated 7 to 22 million individuals in the U.S. may experience long COVID, with greater implications for rural economies and health delivery systems.

Tobacco Use Down; Still High For Certain Groups.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 47.1 million U.S. adults (19%) reported that they were currently using any commercial tobacco product in the 2020 National Health Interview Survey.  The prevalence of cigarette smoking was higher in rural areas than in urban areas among adults who were non-Hispanic Black (38% higher), Hispanic (38% higher), and non-Hispanic White (62% higher).

FCC Requests Comments on Promoting Telehealth in Rural America – Respond by April 14. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeks comment on revisions to its initiatives to fund access to broadband and telecommunication services for rural health care providers. FCC proposes to modify the way the internal funding cap applies to upfront costs and multi-year commitments in the Healthcare Connect Fund Program and to streamline the invoice process in the Telecommunications Program. The rule also seeks comment on ways to further increase the speed of funding commitments.

Twelve Years of the Affordable Care Act. March 23^rd marked the anniversary of the landmark law that has helped millions of Americans gain access to health coverage. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has issued a series of briefs over the last year analyzing how that coverage affected different segments of the population, including rural residents, older adults, immigrants, and ethnic/racial minorities.