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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Health workforce pipeline

How to Transform the U.S. Mental Health System: Evidence-based Recommendations
Discusses evidence-based strategies to promote mental healthcare utilization, improve access to care, and establish a continuum of care. Offers 15 recommendations to improve mental healthcare, including policies regarding reimbursement, workforce growth, and digital and telehealth services, among other topics. Includes rural references throughout.
Additional links: Full Report, Research Brief: Transforming Mental Health Care in the United States
Author(s): Ryan K. McBain, Nicole K. Eberhart, Joshua Breslau, et al.
Date: 01/2021
Sponsoring organization: RAND Corporation
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Pipeline Programs Can Support Reforms in Medical Education: A Cohort Study of Alabama's Rural Health Leaders Pipeline to Engage Community Leaders
Presents a study examining the efficacy of a medical education pipeline program to provide healthcare professionals for rural communities in Alabama. Details the distributions of graduates throughout the state and highlights the counties by the percentage of their populations that are rural, poor, and Black, among other measures.
Author(s): John R. Wheat, James D. Leeper
Citation: Journal of Rural Health
Date: 11/2020
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Practicing Holistic Review in Medical Education
Issue brief that explores holistic review in medical school admissions and key issues related to diversifying and assessing medical school applicants and cohorts in order to expand the healthcare workforce in rural, minority, and underserved areas. Discusses the history and purpose of holistic review, which considers not only academic measures of potential success but also applicants' life experiences, socioeconomic background, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability status, among other characteristics. Recaps informant interviews describing issues and lessons learned from medical school administrators, particularly related to applicant evaluation and emerging assessment methods.
Author(s): Tim Bates, Sunita Mutha, Janet Coffman
Date: 07/2020
Sponsoring organization: Healthforce Center at UCSF
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Developing a Science Outreach Program and Promoting "PhUn" All Year with Rural K-12 Students
Discusses a university-led health science outreach effort in rural northern Michigan that implemented national physiology and biomechanics educational programming in K-12 schools. Addresses the importance of science and health science programming in rural areas due to limited exposure to career options and the need for rural students to consider health careers to offset healthcare shortages. Provides an overview of the outreach program with lessons learned.
Author(s): Jana L. Hendrickson, Thomas K. Bye, Benjamin A. Cockfield, Kathryn R. Carter, Steven J. Elmer
Citation: Advances in Physiology Education, 44(2), 212-216
Date: 06/2020
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Recruiting and Retaining Behavioral Health Workers in Rural America: A Toolkit for Action
Explores successful tactics and programs, and elements missing from many current efforts to recruit and retain behavioral health workers. Describes funding opportunities, pipeline programs, telehealth initiatives, innovative approaches to recruitment and retention, and legislative changes in 2019 that helped promote recruitment and retention.
Author(s): Nancy Baum, Jaque King
Date: 02/2020
Sponsoring organizations: Center for Health and Research Transformation, University of Michigan Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center
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The Behavioral Health Workforce in Rural America: Developing a National Recruitment Strategy
Describes successful strategies to recruit and retain behavioral health workers in rural areas, based on phone interviews with state-level experts in rural health and behavioral health. Explores financial incentives, education and training programs, telehealth, licensure or scope of practice changes, innovative state approaches, and policy considerations.
Author(s): Nancy Baum, Jaque King
Date: 02/2020
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health and Research Transformation
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Professional and Cultural Development of Medical Students Mentoring Adolescents in a Predominately Native Hawaiian Community
Describes the development and design of the the Nānākuli Pathways to Health (NPH) program, a mentoring and health career curriculum, to determine its impact on students' professional development while serving in a rural, underserved Native Hawaiian community.
Author(s): Malia S. Lee, Sachi K. Kaulukukui, Mai S. Smith, Jerrick J.K. Laimana, Kelli-Ann N.F. Voloch
Citation: Hawai'i Journal of Medicine and Public Health, 78(12 Suppl 3), 35-40
Date: 12/2019
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CDFIs 'Make Dreams Come True' by Creating Opportunity in Rural Spaces
Describes the role that Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) can play in helping rural areas gain access to flexible financing options to support rural health projects. Highlights how the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and Healthcare Georgia Foundation work with CDFIs to help address rural health concerns. Also features a CDFI recipient of Uplift America, the South Carolina Community Loan Fund, that has helped support a health professions high school.
Author(s): Jenn Lukens
Date: 12/2019
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Characteristics of Physician Assistant Students Planning to Work in Primary Care: A National Study
Examines the predictors associated with physician assistants' (PAs) intention to practice in primary care. Compares the characteristics of enrolled PA students intending to practice in primary care, and more likely to work in rural practice, with enrolled PAs planning to enter other specialties. Data is taken from the 2013-2014 Physician Assistant Education Association's (PAEA) Matriculating Student Survey (MSS).
Author(s): Eric H. Larson, Bianca K. Frogner
Date: 10/2019
Sponsoring organization: UW Center for Health Workforce Studies
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Expanding the Native American Health Care Workforce
Offers recommendations for increasing the number of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) medical school applicants, students, and graduates based on a summit, Populating the Native Health Care Workforce with American Indian and Alaska Native Physicians. Discusses the distribution of AI/AN physicians and the need for more AI/AN physicians to address health workforce shortages and disparities in Indian Country.
Date: 08/2019
Sponsoring organizations: Association of American Indian Physicians, Association of American Medical Colleges, UnitedHealth Group
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