ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Health-evidence.ca is an online registry of systematic reviews evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions. Extensive searching of bibliographic databases is required to keep the registry up to date. However, search filters have been developed to assist in searching the extensive amount of published literature indexed. Search filters ...

This study examined the beliefs of church leaders about health and associations between these beliefs and the church health promotion environment (CHPE). Perceptions of the CHPE by leaders and members of the same churches were also compared. Interviews were conducted with pastors (n = 40) and members (n = 96) of rural churches. They ...

To explore the impact of living with advanced chronic respiratory illness in a rural area Using an interpretive descriptive approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven people living with advanced chronic respiratory illness in a rural area of Western Canada. Themes that characterised the experience of living in a rural ...

The geographical imbalance of the health workforce in Tanzania represents a serious problem when it comes to delivering crucial health services to a large share of the population. This study provides new quantitative information about how to make jobs in rural areas more attractive to newly educated clinical officers (COs). ...

Psychiatry is a particularly good specialty to provide by telemedicine. The psychiatric interaction translates very well to the interactive video medium and typically does not require any peripheral medical devices for the consultation compared with other specialties. Although telemedicine is most often thought of as strictly a rural health tool ...

To determine the coverage of childhood immunization appropriate for age among socioeconomically disadvantaged rural-urban migrants living in Delhi and to identify the determinants of full immunization uptake among these migrant children. This is a cross-sectional survey of 746 rural-urban migrant mothers with a child aged up to 2 years, who ...

To develop a standardized framework to discuss rural background, a review of the literature to identify studies regarding the association of rural background with primary care and/or rural health practice was conducted. The various definitions of rural background were collated and from this data a framework for the conceptualization of ...

Irrespective of the fact that breastfeeding in India is almost universal, psychosocial and cultural barriers still exists to early breastfeeding. The exact reasons for this delay are not clearly known. Hence we conducted this study to assess breastfeeding knowledge and practices and the factors influencing them among women in rural ...

Rural populations and individuals with low incomes are less likely than the general population to achieve recommended levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. The purpose of this study was to describe the perspectives of low-income adults in 2 rural Wisconsin counties on the factors that influence physical ...

The 'Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada' recognized that people living in rural and remote areas of Canada are at a disadvantage in health status, access to care and health professionals, and it considers the fight against these problems as a national priority. Although some attention has ...

Rural and remote health research has highlighted the many problems experienced in the bush. While attention to problems has raised awareness of the needs of rural and remote health, embedding a deficit perspective in research has stereotyped rural and remote health as poor environments to work in and as inherently ...

This study aimed to construct indices of living standards in rural Bangladesh that could be useful to study health outcomes or identify target populations for poverty-alleviation programmes. The indices were constructed using principal component analysis of data on household assets and house construction materials. Their robustness and use was tested ...

This study aimed to determine the predictors of contraceptive use among married female youths and their husbands using the behavioral theory of the Health Belief Model (HBM). A community-based survey was conducted in a rural area of Myanmar in 2008. A total of 444 respondents (222 couples) were interviewed separately ...

Using ecohealth as a transdisciplinary lens to explore the connections among overlapping domains of inquiry, this article examines methodological relations between Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystem Health, two approaches for improving rural health and well-being. The experience of working on a project tasked with developing an integrated, systems-based approach for understanding ...

During the first few years of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and aided by pro-natal government policies, Iranian fertility was on the rise. In a reversal of its population policy, in 1989, the government launched an ambitious and innovative family planning program aimed at rural families. By 2005, the program ...

Access to well trained and motivated health workers is the major rural health issue. Without local access, it is unlikely that people in rural and remote communities will be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Studies in many countries have shown that the three factors most strongly associated with ...

The classification of places as either urban or rural is typically based on an absolute threshold of population and/or population density. However, conceptual definitions of urbanization and urbanicity encompass dimensions beyond solely population size and population density. Multiple important distinguishing urban characteristics beyond population size have been described. The crude ...

To investigate the impact of the universal health care policy from the perspective of Thai health care professionals. Semi-structured interviews with purposively selected health care professionals and key informants. Health care professionals at public hospitals, particularly in rural areas, have experienced up to a doubling in the number of daily ...

Latino women in the United States are disproportionately at risk for unintended pregnancy, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We conducted nine focus groups with health care practitioners who provide reproductive health care to Latinos in rural areas of the Northwest. From the practitioner perspective, we explored barriers and facilitators ...

OBJECTIVE: To develop a conceptual framework for monitoring the relationship between health services and health outcomes in rural Australia. DESIGN AND SETTING: Development of an evaluation framework for a rural comprehensive primary health service in Victoria. RESULTS: Evidence regarding essential components for successful primary health care, and objective health service ...

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes stages in the research literature related to recruitment and retention of health professionals to rural health careers. DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases accessed included Medline, CINAHL, Social Sciences and Humanities. Key search terms included 'high school', 'career choices', 'rural', 'attachment', 'recruitment' and 'retention'. DATA SYNTHESIS: We identified ...

The 2010 Chalmers Oration was delivered by Dr Tom Calma on 15 August 2010 at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. Dr Calma's presentation concerned the groundbreaking roles that he and the Close the Gap Campaign have played in making a difference to the health of Indigenous Australians, especially those ...

A decade after health sector reform, public health services in rural Cambodia remain under-utilised for multiple reasons related to financial, structural and personnel factors. Ineffectiveness of rural public health services has led to a significant increase in private providers, often the same people who staff public facilities. Public health clinics ...

INTRODUCTION: Regional or state studies in the USA have documented shortages of rural physicians and other healthcare professionals that can impact on access to health services. The purpose of this study was to determine whether rural hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) in the USA report shortages of health professions and ...

This study investigates the effectiveness of centralized and decentralized health care providers in rural Mexico. It compares provider performance since both centralized and decentralized providers co-exist in rural areas of the country. The data are drawn from the 2003 household survey of Oportunidades, a comprehensive study of rural families from ...

To assess the effect of decentralization (DC) of antiretroviral therapy (ART) provision in a rural district of Malawi using an integrated primary care model. Between October 2004 and December 2008, 8093 patients (63% women) were registered for ART. Of these, 3440 (43%) were decentralized to health centres for follow-up ART ...

BACKGROUND: The Council for Remote Area Nurses of Australia deliver the MEC course which is the only short-course on maternity emergencies offered to non-midwifery qualified remote area nurses and Aboriginal Health Workers. The aim of the course is to improve the maternity emergency skills and knowledge of health service providers ...

BACKGROUND: Poor retention of health workers is a significant problem in rural and remote areas, with negative consequences for both health services and patient care. OBJECTIVE: This review aimed to synthesise the available evidence regarding the effectiveness of retention strategies for health workers in rural and remote areas, with a ...

No published study, to date, has examined the characteristics and health outcomes of natural disaster-affected populations in unofficial rural self-settled internally displaced camps. By examining resident profiles in various unofficial rural displaced settlements after the 2005 Kashmir, Pakistan earthquake, this study aims to (i) describe the demographic and epidemiological characteristics ...

This article reports on a mixed methods study to define the role of nurse practitioners (NPs) in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, by collecting the perceptions of rural health board chairpersons and health-care providers. Qualitative data were collected in telephone interviews with health board chairpersons. Quantitative data were collected in a ...

OBJECTIVES: This review identifies the challenges to oral health in rural America and describes areas of innovation in prevention, delivery of dental services, and workforce development that may improve oral health for rural populations. METHODS: This descriptive article is based on literature reviews and personal communications. RESULTS: Rural populations have ...

The objectives of this study were: (1) test the psychometric properties of OHIP-14 in a rural population; and (2) compare the oral health impacts in two riverine communities in the Brazilian Amazon that were living at different distances from an urban center. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional study in ...

Poor access to health care is one of the greatest impediments to improved health in Africa. In Zambia, user fees are considered to be partly responsible for substantial disparities in access to health care. When the Government introduced user fees in 1993, considerable concern was expressed about the adverse effects ...

This interim final rule (IFR) with request for comment is meant to comply with the statutory directive to issue a regulation defining "underserved rural community" for purposes of the Rural Physician Training Grant Program in section 749B of the Public Health Service Act, as amended by the Patient Protection and ...

Assessing the usefulness of GP electronic medical records for assessing the health of rural populations by comparing these data with data from health interview surveys. Data from electronic medical records routinely recorded in general practices in 2000-2002. Data on self-reported health problems were obtained through questionnaires in a subset of ...

This paper uses a close reading of villagers' responses to the death in childbirth of a Muslim woman to raise questions about India's current policy emphasis on institutional delivery as a means of reducing maternal mortality. After introducing the context and methods of our research, we describe recent policy interventions ...

Background: In England, although some studies report better health among rural populations, few have examined social inequalities in health within rural areas and how they compare to inequalities observed in urban settings. The objectives of this study are to examine (i) whether living in rural, in more affluent and in ...

This study was carried out to gauge the preliminary insight regarding epilepsy among the rural society. The purposes of this study were: (1) to determine general level of awareness, knowledge and attitudes (AKA) towards epilepsy among rural communities, (2) to compare the AKA level based on socio-demographic characteristics and (3) ...

The main purpose of the study is to assess urban versus rural differences in functional status transitions among older Chinese, aged 55+, and to examine how individual and community level socioeconomic indicators alter the rural/urban effects and themselves influence transitions. The study uses a hierarchical linear modeling approach that considers ...

BACKGROUND: The population in the German federal state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania is growing older. A resulting rise in age-related diseases will likely lead to a greater need for medical care, even though the population as a whole is declining. The predicted number of patients affected by these diseases varies from ...

Developing countries currently face internal and external migration of their health workforce and interventions are needed to attract and retain health professionals in rural areas. Evidence of multidimensional interventions, however, is scarce. This study explores a long-standing strategy to attract and retain doctors to rural areas in Chile: the Rural ...

OBJECTIVE: To understand the factors influencing health workers' choice to work in rural areas as a basis for designing policies to redress geographic imbalances in health worker distribution. METHODS: A cohort survey of 412 nursing and medical students in Rwanda provided unique contingent valuation data. Using these data, we performed ...

The lack of health workers in remote and rural areas is a worldwide concern. Many countries have proposed and implemented interventions to address this issue, but very little is known about the effectiveness of such interventions and their sustainability in the long run. This paper provides an analysis of the ...

This study provided an exploratory analysis of key social determinants of health for older Canadian women, with a focus on differences between rural and urban residency, given that socio-economic status (SES) and social capital have been shown to differ by rural-urban residence. Secondary analysis was conducted using the 2000/2001 Canadian ...

The health of children improved dramatically worldwide during the 20th century, although with major contrasts between developed and developing countries, and urban and rural areas. The quantitative evidence on urban child health from a broad historical and comparative perspective is briefly reviewed here. Before the sanitary revolution, urban mortality tended ...

OBJECTIVE: This paper argues that rural and remote health is in need of theoretical development. DESIGN: Based on the authors' discussions, reflections and critical analyses of literature, this paper proposes key reasons why rural and remote health warrants the development of theoretical frameworks. RESULTS: The paper cites five reasons why ...

Though not purposefully targeted, Nepal's decade-long violent conflict waged by the United Communist Party Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) has had considerable impact on the health of the population. Fairly early on the UCPN-M established its own primary health care services in the rural areas under its control. This questionnaire study included 197 ...

Researchers, veterinary and health care practitioners, and agricultural producers gathered in Johnston, Iowa, to attend the eighth annual Midwest Rural Agricultural Safety and Health Forum (MRASH), November 2009. Among several focus areas, four plenary talks were given on the current research being conducted examining methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on swine ...

Due to the important role of cities for regional, national, and international economic development and the concurrent degradation of the urban environmental quality under rapid urbanization, a systematic diagnosis of urban ecosystem health for sustainable ecological management is urgently needed. This paper reviews the related research on urban ecosystem health ...

To measure the incidence and severity of health payment-induced poverty of rural households under the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in rural Shandong, China. We collected primary data from a household survey to identify catastrophic health payments and measure associated health payment-induced poverty in a county of Shandong province. From ...