This study from the Maine Rural Health Research Center identifies states potentially at risk for an HIV outbreak among persons who inject drugs in order to examine rural-urban differences in surveillance, prevention, and response to outbreak. Related to this project, Maine researchers also created a chartbook of rural HIV prevalence and service availability, and a report on rural-urban differences in rates of maternal infection with hepatitis C virus.

In its latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention report that more than 47,000 deaths were attributed to suicide in 2019. For the first time in a decade, the overall suicide rate from 2018 to 2019 declined.  The lowest rate was found in large central metropolitan areas, and the highest in nonmetropolitan areas. Firearms were the most common mechanism of suicide in all county urbanization levels.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that, among all rural residents aged 25 years or older, the percentage who had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 15 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2019.  Ethnic disparities persist in what is considered a leading social determinant of health, with Whites completing high school and bachelor’s degrees at much higher rates than those who are Black, American Indian, or Hispanic.

The Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS), with support from the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP), released the OMHSAS Telehealth Survey Report. This telehealth survey was conducted in the Spring of 2020, during the initial onset of COVID-19. The results of the Telehealth Survey have allowed OMHSAS to hear directly from stakeholders and to better understand their experiences with and access to telehealth during these tumultuous and difficult times. Here is a link to the OMHSAS Telehealth Survey Report on OMHSAS’s Telehealth webpage. If you would like to contact OMHSAS about this report, please send an email to RA-PWTBHS@pa.gov.

On Feb. 25, Pennie released its first Annual Report. The 29-page report highlights core areas of the state-based exchange and provides details and data on the Pennie program and open enrollment statistics. View specific consumer and county level data as well as the outreach and marketing highlights. Prior to Pennsylvania moving to a state-based marketplace, this kind of data was not available. Read the full report.

House Resolution 515 of 2019 directed the Legislative, Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) of the state legislature to conduct a broad-based study of Pennsylvania’s county administered, community-based mental health (MH) services. The resolution required LBFC to collect and present information on ten comprehensive and complex data points. In response to HR 515, LBFC modified the objectives and scope and focused on creating observational summaries of data that was collected from various state agencies, including the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Health Care Cost Containment Council PHC4). LBFC also surveyed all county mental health administrators. Here is access to the Full Report, Report Highlights and Committee Presentation.

This study from the Maine Rural Health Research Center compared rural and urban opioid-related visits (ORVs) to the emergency departments and the outcomes of these visits. One finding was that rural ORVs were more likely than those in urban areas to be by patients 65 and older and to involve concurrent use of benzodiazepines.

This paper from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis documents trends over time and compares the characteristics of open and closed nursing homes in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties.  It also identifies counties without any nursing homes and describes the population characteristics in these places.

The American Communities Project is a nonpartisan nonprofit that uses a range of data, from consumer surveys to polling, to categorize 15 types of counties across the U.S.  This report assesses risk for extreme rainfall, drought, and heat stress in each county and describes the impact on public health.