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Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Project Examples: Effective

Browse rural projects that meet this collection's second highest level of evidence. For each example listed, the approach has been reported in a peer-reviewed publication.

Updated/reviewed March 2025

  • Need: Due to West Virginia's high ranking for its use of smokeless tobacco, prevention and cessation education efforts were needed.
  • Intervention: Development and implementation of the Spit It Out-West Virginia program.
  • Results: Supported by a 2008-2010 grant allowing the program to be delivered to hundreds of people, 5 workplaces became tobacco free. The program continues to be delivered across the state and reaches hundreds with its face-to-face presentations and thousands with its specific media prevention and cessation messages.

Updated/reviewed November 2024

  • Need: Legal barriers often prevent low-income people in Southern Illinois from obtaining positive health outcomes despite receiving medical care.
  • Intervention: The Medical Legal Partnership of Southern Illinois (MLPSI) was formed to create a system where medical providers can refer patients in need of legal assistance to local attorneys.
  • Results: Over 5,700 patients have utilized MLPSI since its founding in 2002. The program has relieved over $8.1 million in medical debt for both hospitals and patients.

Updated/reviewed October 2024

  • Need: General surgeons are needed in rural communities.
  • Intervention: Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is sending residents to complete a general surgery rotation in rural southern Oregon.
  • Results: 19 graduates of the rural residency program are currently practicing in a rural setting. The residents remain more likely than other OHSU residents to enter general surgery practice and to serve in a community of fewer than 50,000 people.

Updated/reviewed August 2024

  • Need: Improve healthcare access and decrease chronic disease disparities in rural Appalachia.
  • Intervention: A unique community health worker-based chronic care management program, created with philanthropy support.
  • Results: After a decade of use in attending to population health needs, health outcomes, healthcare costs, in 2024, the medical condition-agnostic model has a 4-year track record of financial sustainability with recent scaling to include 31 rural counties in a 3-state area of Appalachia and recent implementation in urban areas.
funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Updated/reviewed August 2024

  • Need: Expand healthcare access for the more remote residents of 3 frontier counties in north central Idaho.
  • Intervention: With early federal grant-funding, a consortium of healthcare providers and community agencies used a hybrid Community Health Worker model to augment traditional healthcare delivery services in order to offer a comprehensive set of health-related interventions to frontier area residents.
  • Results: With additional private grant funding, success continued to build into the current model of an established and separate CHW division within the health system's population health department.

Updated/reviewed May 2024

  • Need: To reduce overdose-related deaths among prescription opioid users in rural Wilkes County, North Carolina.
  • Intervention: Education and tools are provided for prescribers, patients and community members to lessen drug supply and demand, and to reduce harm in prescription opioid use.
  • Results: Opioid overdose death rates have decreased in Wilkes County.
funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To improve awareness of behavioral and mental health issues by students in rural, east central Mississippi.
  • Intervention: An intensive community mental health outreach program was implemented for students in rural Mississippi.
  • Results: As of 2018 and on a yearly basis, 6,000 7th and 8th grade students receive mental health education on a variety of topics which improves their ability to recognize mental health issues, high risk behaviors, and manage their own choices.

Updated/reviewed January 2024

  • Need: More evidenced-based chronic lower respiratory disease management options for rural Appalachia patients, where lung disease rates are among the highest in the country.
  • Intervention: Implementation of outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation programs in 2 Federally Qualified Health Centers and a Critical Access Hospital in West Virginia.
  • Results: Improved health outcomes for patients with chronic lower respiratory disease, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Updated/reviewed December 2023

  • Need: To improve the health status and access for rural nursing home patients in need of mental health services.
  • Intervention: The University of Vermont Medical Center provides telepsychiatry care and education to nursing homes in communities that face shortages of mental health professionals.
  • Results: These telepsychiatry consultations have eased the burden on nursing home residents by saving travel time, distance, and money it takes to travel to the nearest tertiary facility.

Added October 2023

  • Need: To recruit and train medical students who are committed to choosing rural practice.
  • Intervention: An add-on curriculum that includes seminars, field trips, and clinical rotations in rural and underserved areas.
  • Results: 436 students have graduated from the RMED program between 1997 and 2023, with 65% of program graduates practicing in towns of less than 50,000 people.