National and Multi-State Rural Project Examples

Mental Health First Aid

Updated/reviewed July 2024

Need: Rural areas face challenges in access to mental health services, including shortages of mental health providers.
Intervention: This 8-hour course trains rural community members to recognize mental health and substance use issues and learn how to help someone who is developing a mental health concern or experiencing a mental health crisis.
Results: Numerous studies of this method have found that course participants are better able and more likely to help others regarding mental health issues.

Updated/reviewed July 2024

Need: Few older adults, particularly women and those in rural areas, participate in healthy living interventions.
Intervention: Health educators lead community-based healthy living classes, which include strength training, aerobic exercise, dietary skill building, and/or civic engagement, depending on the program.
Results: StrongPeople™ programs have been shown to improve weight, diet, physical activity, strength, cardiovascular health profile, physical function, pain, depression, and/or self-confidence in midlife and older adults.

Updated/reviewed March 2024

Need: A drug and alcohol prevention program for middle school students that is specific to rural culture.
Intervention: An adaptation of the evidence-based keepin' it REAL curriculum was customized for rural middle school students.
Results: Students showed a reduction in all substance use and less personal acceptability of substance use.

Updated/reviewed February 2024

Need: Increase medical management knowledge for New Mexico primary care providers in order to provide care for the thousands of rural and underserved patients with hepatitis C, a chronic, complex condition that has high personal and public health costs when left untreated.
Intervention: Project leveraging an audiovisual platform to accomplish "moving knowledge, not patients" that used a "knowledge network learning loop" of disease-specific consultants and rural healthcare teams learning from each other and learning by providing direct patient care.
Results: In 18 months, the urban specialist appointment wait list decreased from 8 months to 2 weeks due to Hepatitis C patients receiving care from the project's participating primary care providers. Improved disease outcomes were demonstrated along with cost savings, including those associated with travel. The project model, now known as Project ECHO® – Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes — has evolved into a telementoring model used world-wide.

Updated/reviewed February 2024

Need: To enhance palliative care access to rural patients with advanced cancer or heart failure and their family caregivers.
Intervention: Project ENABLE consists of: 1) an initial in-person palliative care consultation with a specialty-trained provider and 2) a semi-structured series of weekly, phone-delivered, nurse-led or palliative care coach/navigator sessions designed to help patients and their caregivers enhance their problem-solving, symptom management, and coping skills.
Results: Patients and caregivers report higher quality of life and lower rates of depression and (caregiver) burden.

Updated/reviewed September 2023

Need: To help people with chronic conditions learn how to manage their health.
Intervention: A small-group 6-week workshop for individuals with chronic conditions to learn skills and strategies to manage their health.
Results: Participants have better health and quality of life, including reduction in pain, fatigue, and depression.

Updated/reviewed July 2023

Need: Population-based rates of adult vaccinations and cancer screenings are low. Delivery rates are lower still in low-income and minority communities.
Intervention: SPARC was established to develop and test new community-wide strategies to increase the delivery of clinical preventive services.
Results: Across the United States in both rural and urban communities, SPARC programs, which broaden the delivery of potentially life-saving preventive services, have been successfully launched, improving residents' health.

Updated/reviewed August 2020

Need: Osteoarthritis is a chronic condition which often causes multiple related disabilities in older adults.
Intervention: An 8-week physical activity, behavior change, and falls prevention program geared to older adults with osteoarthritis.
Results: Participants gained confidence with increased exercise, lessened stiffness, improved joint pain and improved lower extremity strength and mobility.

Updated/reviewed November 2024

Need: To encourage farmers to make health and safety changes on their farms.
Intervention: Farm Dinner Theater is an event in which farmers and their families watch three 10-minute plays covering health and safety topics and then discuss solutions to the issues addressed in each.
Results: In a study, farmers who attended the plays were more likely to make changes and tell others what they learned, compared to farmers who received an educational packet with the same information.

Updated/reviewed May 2024

Need: To reduce the risk of HIV/STDs among Latino men living in rural regions of the United States.
Intervention: Soccer team leaders are elected and trained as lay health advisors to promote sexual health education among team members.
Results: Program participants report an increase in HIV testing, an increase in condom use, and an increase in awareness of how to prevent the transmission of HIV.