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Residents Lead Rural Health Revolution

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(NewsUSA) - Rural America can be a sanctuary from the noise and congestion of city life. But people who live in rural areas-about 20 percent of the nation's population-also may be miles from health essentials, such as doctors, dentists, exercise facilities and supermarkets that sell fruits and vegetables.

Rural Americans are more likely than their urban counterparts to go without health insurance, to smoke and to become overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. They are less likely to receive dental care. Car accidents and other unintentional injuries also claim lives at higher rates in rural areas than they do in urban ones.

Researchers in the CDC's Prevention Research Centers (PRC) network, which funds about $10 million in rural health research each year, are working closely with rural communities to solve these health challenges.

An advantage to living in rural areas, says Jim Burdine, Dr.P.H., of the Texas A&M University PRC, is that residents often have greater access than people in urban areas do to influential decision-makers and more opportunities to make system-wide changes.

"Bring 30 to 40 people together on a Tuesday night at the local library, and ask them about the challenges in the environment," Dr. Burdine suggests. "Is it transportation? Has the local doctor retired? What are the resources to solve these problems? People will start to come up with potential solutions, and folks will realize they had a good idea they never shared with anybody."

And while rural areas may be low on some resources like hospitals and grocery stores, they are high on others like a sense of community and the ability of neighbors to work together, researchers say.

West Plains, Mo., a rural town of 11,592 people, saw the deaths of high school-runners who jogged on winding country roads. Residents worked with the Saint Louis University PRC to create a safe trail for walkers and runners.

Other rural communities have started farmer's markets to bring in fresh produce, set up church vans and volunteer drivers to get people to distant doctor's appointments or teamed up with dental schools to bring in student dentists. High schools are tapping into a smoking-cessation program created by the West Virginia University PRC to lower smoking rates among rural teenagers.

In addition to the PRCs in Texas, West Virginia and Missouri, PRCs in Iowa, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and New York work with rural communities.

In Sigourney, Iowa, a town of 2,157 people, the University of Iowa's PRC teamed with community partners to ask restaurant and store owners to promote healthy foods. Community members encouraged schools to make unsweetened beverages available and worked to allow adults to use school buildings for walking after hours. Researchers believe these simple steps can lead to lower obesity rates.

Although researchers and government programs can help, the best ideas usually come from residents who know the needs and priorities of the community, Dr. Burdine says.

"Ultimately," he says, "The solutions are not going to come from the outside."

For more information, visit http://www.cdc.gov/prc.