Rural Project Examples Addressing Community engagement and volunteerism

Updated/reviewed October 2023

Need: Public transportation options in a rural 8-county area in northwest Minnesota.
Intervention: A coordinated public transportation and volunteer driver system which serves northwest Minnesota.
Results: Increased ridership and affordable access to transportation for residents of 8 counties in rural, northwest Minnesota.

Updated/reviewed September 2023

Need: Improved health outcomes for Monadnock Region, a rural area of New Hampshire.
Intervention: A wide-scale effort across multiple sectors is aiming to improve health outcomes throughout the region.
Results: Community health trends have been tracked over time, and progress on goals such as increasing the number of residents with healthcare coverage, opportunities for physical activity, access to healthy foods, and smoking cessation has been made.

Updated/reviewed August 2023

Need: Health initiatives in rural Pennsylvania communities to address locally-identified health disparities.
Intervention: Healthy Adams County was created by its rural community members to promote community-wide health.
Results: Community task forces have been formed to address breast cancer prevention, food policies, behavioral health, health literacy, oral health, tobacco prevention, and other rural, community-identified needs.

Updated/reviewed July 2023

Need: To bring needed child care to rural Mercer County, North Dakota.
Intervention: A nonprofit cooperative provides part-time and full-time child care.
Results: ECCCC currently has about 60 children enrolled, but it had 86 children at the height of its enrollment history.

Updated/reviewed July 2023

Need: To provide accessible and affordable services to address the challenges associated with aging, serious illness, and grief across rural western Colorado.
Intervention: A nonprofit, community-sustained healthcare model was created to provide the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), hospice care and palliative care, as well as grief support services for individuals of all ages.
Results: Since 1993, HopeWest has grown to serve more than 3,000 people annually across five counties in western Colorado.

Updated/reviewed May 2023

Need: Out of 79 Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) surveyed in Minnesota in 2015, behavioral health was the most frequently cited service requested.
Intervention: In response, Rural Health Innovations launched the Minnesota Integrative Behavioral Health Program. This initiative engaged representatives across all sectors in health integration between hospital, primary care, and community services.
Results: Strategy sessions resulted in the creation of resource directories to improve care coordination, evaluation measurements to document results, and an overall better understanding of integrative care challenges.

Updated/reviewed February 2023

Need: Suicide among veterans has been steadily increasing, and rural veterans have an increased risk of death by suicide compared to urban veterans.
Intervention: A program called Together With Veterans was formed to help rural communities address and prevent suicides among veterans. The initiative is veteran-led, collaborative, evidence-based, and community-centered.
Results: Data collection is ongoing.

Updated/reviewed October 2022

Need: To reduce risk of obesity and chronic disease in rural northwest Illinois.
Intervention: Win With Wellness (WWW) collaborates with community organizations and worksites to improve physical activity and eating behaviors and reduce weight among adults using a multi-component approach.
Results: From 2015 to 2018, the two participating counties initiated 28 Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) groups with 367 participants. In the second round of funding, WWW recruited 183 participants for 9 TOPS groups and 8 community Heart-to-Heart sites.

Rural Project Examples: Community engagement and volunteerism