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Rural Health Disparities 2020

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Global Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 9015

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Health Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
2. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
Interests: rural health; population geography; environmental health; spatial analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue on Rural Health Disparities in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, please visit the website at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

Rural communities worldwide are undergoing sometimes rapid transition of their economies, culture, and social connections. Small, seemingly geographically isolated villages have become more inter-connected through technological advancements in some areas, while simultaneously being left out of other, often urban-focused initiatives. However, most research examines rural regions and communities from an urban-normative or urban-comparative lens, where “the rural” is not seen as an object of study in and of itself.

Rural communities have marked differences in health outcomes and experience barriers to accessing timely and effective health services. Differences are evident in health behaviors, health literacy, perceived health, and health outcomes within and between rural regions and rural communities. These differences are most evident for those most marginalized, including Indigenous and ethnic minority populations, and often reflect inequities in upstream determinants of health. The underlying causes for these disparities are broad and not necessarily well understood in relation to how health care and public health can address them. While geographic accessibility is most often thought of as the primary driver of health disparities, differences go beyond simple distance and include demographic changes, economic restructuring, neoliberalism and globalization, and the legacy of colonization and civil unrest.

This issue on Rural Health highlights important health disparities in rural communities, describes current barriers to accessing healthcare services in rural settings, and discusses innovative strategies that are being developed and implemented to improve the quality of care delivered to rural communities across the globe. Uniquely, articles in this Issue are encouraged to examine health disparities from a rural perspective first, rather than urban-normative analysis or rural-urban comparisons.

This Special Issue is open to any subject area related to health disparities in rural communities and rural areas. The listed keywords suggest just a few of the many possibilities.

Assoc. Prof. Paul Peters
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • rural health
  • rural health services
  • public health
  • population health
  • health status disparities
  • health geography
  • medical geography
  • Indigenous health
  • social determinants of health
  • access to health care
  • healthcare disparities
  • healthcare inequalities
  • health equity
  • rural development

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 2327 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Impacts of Relative Wealth and Geospatial Factors on Water Access in Rural Nepal: A Community Case Study
by Naseeha Islam, Pramesh Koju, Reetu Manandhar, Sudip Shrestha and Charlotte Smith
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(18), 6517; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186517 - 7 Sep 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2360
Abstract
As one of the poorest nations, citizens of Nepal lack access to safe, affordable, and sufficient drinking water. While many nationwide studies have been performed at a country or regional level in Nepal to determine regions of the highest vulnerability, this study uniquely [...] Read more.
As one of the poorest nations, citizens of Nepal lack access to safe, affordable, and sufficient drinking water. While many nationwide studies have been performed at a country or regional level in Nepal to determine regions of the highest vulnerability, this study uniquely recognizes the economic heterogeneity within a single rural village and assesses the impact of household socioeconomic status on water access at the intracommunity level. Household surveys in a rural village setting provided the information for a locally-informed relative wealth index. A spatial analysis determined suitable locations for future installation of improved water sources to prioritize water access for the community’s most vulnerable households. Three sites were shown to be optimal for future water source construction. This study provides a blueprint to assess water inequalities within a single village and incorporate forward-thinking development approaches to water access. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Health Disparities 2020)
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20 pages, 728 KiB  
Review
“You Need ID to Get ID”: A Scoping Review of Personal Identification as a Barrier to and Facilitator of the Social Determinants of Health in North America
by Chris Sanders, Kristin Burnett, Steven Lam, Mehdia Hassan and Kelly Skinner
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(12), 4227; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124227 - 13 Jun 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 6080
Abstract
Personal identification (PID) is an important, if often overlooked, barrier to accessing the social determinants of health for many marginalized people in society. A scoping review was undertaken to explore the range of research addressing the role of PID in the social determinants [...] Read more.
Personal identification (PID) is an important, if often overlooked, barrier to accessing the social determinants of health for many marginalized people in society. A scoping review was undertaken to explore the range of research addressing the role of PID in the social determinants of health in North America, barriers to acquiring and maintaining PID, and to identify gaps in the existing research. A systematic search of academic and gray literature was performed, and a thematic analysis of the included studies (n = 31) was conducted. The themes identified were: (1) gaining and retaining identification, (2) access to health and social services, and (3) facilitating identification programs. The findings suggest a paucity of research on PID services and the role of PID in the social determinants of health. We contend that research is urgently required to build a more robust understanding of existing PID service models, particularly in rural contexts, as well as on barriers to accessing and maintaining PID, especially among the most marginalized groups in society. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Health Disparities 2020)
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