Conducting Rural Health Research, Needs Assessments, and Program Evaluations – Resources

An Overview of the National Cancer Institute's Initiatives to Accelerate Rural Cancer Control Research
Highlights initiatives developed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to address the obstacles and opportunities in rural cancer control research. Summarizes discussions from an NCI-hosted national meeting held on May 30-31, 2018. Conference topics centered on rural definitions, surveillance and epidemiologic research, overcoming methodologic challenges, executing multilevel interventions, and using implementation science in rural cancer control.
Author(s): Amy E. Kennedy, Robin C. Vanderpool, Robert T. Croyle, Shobha Srinivasan
Citation: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 27(11), 1240-1244
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
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Critical Access Hospitals' Community Health Needs Assessments and Implementation Plans: How Do They Align?
Examines how Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) are using community health needs assessments to improve population health. Highlights common community health issues identified by the needs assessments, types of strategies CAHs used to address them, and ways to improve on their efforts to meet community needs. Discusses how Flex programs can support CAHs in their work and includes a list of resources to help CAHs.
Author(s): John A. Gale, Zachariah Croll, Lauren Zoll, Andrew F. Coburn
Date: 10/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Flex Monitoring Team
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Community Health Needs Assessments: Resources for Community Paramedicine & Mobile Integrated Healthcare
Provides information for emergency medical service (EMS) agencies exploring community paramedicine and mobile integrated healthcare (CP-MIH). Includes resources to match CP-MIH services with targeted community health needs and covers rural CP-MIH program examples.
Date: 10/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Association of State EMS Officials
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Data Sources and Data-Linking Strategies to Support Research to Address the Opioid Crisis: Final Report
Identifies and describes secondary data sources that can be used in research and evaluations related to the opioid crisis. Discusses common approaches used to link or merge data sources. Describes research needs and challenges related to studying the opioid crisis.
Author(s): Rosanna Smart, Courtney Ann Kase, Amanda Meyer, Bradley D. Stein
Date: 09/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, RAND Corporation
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U.S. Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates Project: Methodology and Results Summary
Describes the methodology used to determine the first set of abridged period life tables for U.S. census tracts from 2010 to 2015 for the District of Columbia and all states excluding Maine and Wisconsin. Provides statistics on small-area life expectancy at birth, and life expectancy at birth and population educational attainment by census tract.
Author(s): Elizabeth Arias, Loraine A. Escobedo, Jocelyn Kennedy, Chunxia Fu, Jodi Cisewski
Date: 09/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Center for Health Statistics
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Engaging People Who Are Hard to Reach
Discusses the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's (PCORI) efforts in engaging rural communities in healthcare research. Presents methods for reaching migrant and seasonal farmworker populations, as well as other predominately rural groups.
Author(s): Ivey Wohlfeld
Date: 08/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
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The Death Certificate: A Document to be Honored and Accurate
Provides an overview of the role that death certificates play in understanding death causation and in allocating health resources to address key health concerns. Discusses training approaches that can help address death certificate inaccuracies.
Author(s): Kay Miller Temple
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 08/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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HRSA Health Workforce Training Program Evaluation Toolkit
Evaluation framework for Primary Care Training Enhancement grantees in rural and urban areas. Provides recommendations to monitor trainee outcomes and program strategies, and includes 7 modules and related tools to be used in grant planning and in the evaluation phase.
Date: 06/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Health Resources and Services Administration
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Issues in Developing Multidimensional Indices of State-level Health Inequalities: National Health Interview Survey, 2013–2015
Examines methodological issues related to developing and estimating health inequality measures that span multiple dimensions of health. One of the inequality attributes included in the discussion is urbanicity, based on the NCHS urban-rural classification scheme.
Author(s): Makram Talih, Maria A. Villarroel
Date: 06/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Center for Health Statistics
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Improving Health Research on Small Populations: Proceedings of a Workshop
Summary of a January 2018 workshop focused on health research with small population groups, including rural populations. Discusses the challenges of small population health research and innovative approaches related to study design, data collection, and statistical analysis to address these challenges.
Additional links: Read Online
Date: 05/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Health and Medicine Division (HMD), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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