University of Maine System�s Rural Issues Symposium: Highlighting and Connecting Issues Facing Rural Maine Communities

Reviewed by: Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps ed. by Lars Hallstrom et al. Duane (Dewey) Thorbeck Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps. Edited by Lars Hallstrom, Mary Becke, Glen Hvenegaard, and Karsten Mundel. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2016. ix + 370 pp. Figures, maps, index. $49.95 paper. This book is an excellent compilation of research on rural sustainability issues in Canada, covering a number of topics by university researchers and rural communities working closely together. It is an outgrowth of a 2010 "Taking the Next Steps" conference organized by the Alberta Center for Sustainable Rural Communities held in a rural city north of Edmonton. Participants in the conference represented a rural community as well as the research community. The book is an assemblage with great emphasis on academic details, but the reader will find some very interesting rural stories within it. I applaud the Center for Great Plains Studies for reaching across the border to promote this important book. The rural issues the contributors discuss all involve public engagement with academics and rural citizens working together, covering a wide range of issues, from Aboriginal communities to land use regarding conversion of farmland, to economic impacts of rural population loss and aging, and the meanings of sustainability. The book describes "real places and real challenges" (352) throughout Canada. The last chapter, by Roger Epp, a political science professor, is a very good summary of the book as well as an outline of rural complexities in Canada. I grew up in northwest Minnesota on the edge of the Great Plains, in a subregion sharing the Red River watershed that flows north into Canada, impacting urban and rural areas on both sides of the border. As a practicing architect and founder/director of the Center for Rural Design at the University of Minnesota, my world travels and experiences created a passion to bring design as a problem-solving process and design thinking to rural issues, linking urban and rural futures together. For the past 20 years I have researched problems impacting both urban and rural people in Minnesota and worldwide. The connections between urban and rural are most critical because you cannot successfully resolve rural issues with also dealing with urban issues and vice versa. As good as this book is, it reflects traditional academic thinking, researching, and discussing issues in publications separately rather than crossing borders and seeking connections between. The academy must transform [End Page 144] itself to become more relevant. The lack of any reference to design and design thinking or any connections between urban and rural in dealing with and developing solutions for the future of rural Canada attests to my concern. With the potential of another 2.5 billion people on the planet by 2050, it is critical that global impacts of climate change, food security, renewable energy, water resources, environmental resiliency, and wellness (human, animal, and environmental) be looked at as an integrated rural and urban problem that must be resolved together—locally and globally simultaneously. Together we must find ways to shape land uses today so that future generations can also shape theirs. After all, Earth is the place we all call home. Duane (Dewey) Thorbeck Emeritus Founder/Director of the Center for Rural Design Copyright © 2017 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Politics in the countryside has undergone a significant shift in emphasis in recent decades, which may be characterized as a transition from ‘rural politics’ to ‘a politics of the rural’. Whereas ‘rural politics’ refers broadly to politics located in rural space, or relating to ‘rural issues’, the ‘politics of the rural’ is defined by the centrality of the meaning and regulation of rurality itself as the primary focus of conflict and debate. However, far from marginalizing social issues – as early work on the new rural conflicts by Mormont implied – the paper argues that the new politics of the rural has liberated rural social policy from the shadow of agricultural policy, providing a new language and context through which rural social issues can be placed on the political agenda. Three examples of this are discussed, drawing on illustrations from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and North America – conflicts over the rationalization of public and commercial services in rural communities; campaigns around the closure of rural schools and their symbolic place at the heart of rural communities; and issues of difference and discrimination in the countryside, including responses to travellers and asylum‐seekers.

Directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, climate change will affect all sectors and regions of the United States. The impacts, however, will not be homogenous across regions, sectors, population groups or time. The literature specifically related to how climate change will affect rural communities, their resilience, and adaptive capacity in the United States (U.S.) is scarce. This article bridges this knowledge gap through an extensive review of the current state of knowledge to make inferences about the rural communities vulnerability to climate change based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. Our analysis shows that rural communities tend to be more vulnerable than their urban counterparts due to factors such as demography, occupations, earnings, literacy, poverty incidence, and dependency on government funds. Climate change impacts on rural communities differs across regions and economic sectors; some will likely benefit while others lose. Rural communities engaged in agricultural and forest related activities in the Northeast might benefit, while those in the Southwest and Southeast could face additional water stress and increased energy cost respectively. Developing adaptation and mitigation policy options geared towards reducing climatic vulnerability of rural communities is warranted. A set of regional and local studies is needed to delineate climate change impacts across rural and urban communities, and to develop appropriate policies to mitigate these impacts. Integrating research across disciplines, strengthening research-policy linkages, integrating ecosystem services while undertaking resource valuation, and expanding alternative energy sources, might also enhance coping capacity of rural communities in face of future climate change.

Public education in the United States must meet the needs of nearly ten million children attending schools in rural communities across the country. This comprises about 20 % of the nation’s student population and over 23 % of state expenditures on education. Since the 1990s there has been an increasing emphasis on examining rural education—policy, practice, and student outcomes—in research and in the programs of the U.S. Department of Education. In this chapter we describe the most frequent rural education issues addressed in recent research literature, and propose a research agenda for the next generation of work on rural issues. This book grew out of the 2013 Connect-Inform-Advance rural conference hosted by the National Center for Research Rural Education that was intended to take stock of what is known about rural education, how we have come to know it, and what will be important to learn more about in the coming years. The chapters of this book represent a natural extension of the conference discussion themes of defining and describing rural context and culture in research, examining influences on student outcomes, the use of interdisciplinary research partnerships, and future directions for conducting and disseminating rural education research results.

Spatial Assessment of the Relationship between Environmental Vulnerability and Rural Community Resilience in East-Azerbaijan Province

On a global scale, many major rural health issues have persisted for decades despite the introduction of new health interventions and public health policies. Although research efforts have generated valuable...

Rural communities in mountainous areas are heavily dependent on natural resources for their livelihood. The increased frequency of extreme events has made the livelihood of these communities vulnerable. This paper examines livelihood resilience among rural workers in Dimapur district of India. The data was collected from 480 sampled households using a pre-tested questionnaire. We constructed the resilience capacity index (RCI) using site-specific indicators of its components namely access to basic services, assets, social safety nets, and adaptive capacity. The results revealed that resilience capacity was found low among agricultural laborers followed by household industry workers, cultivators, and other workers. The regression analysis revealed that the access to basic services has influenced the resilience capacity of all categories of workers. The RCI has not only helped in assessing relative resilience among the various categories of workers but also worked as an effective planning tool for devising suitable strategies to improve resilience.

Why some rural areas decline while some others not: An overview of rural evolution in the world

The first three articles of this edition of the Australian Journal of Rural Health address important innovations in rural health. Gardner et al.1 review what is known about the challenges of implementing quality improvement programs and draws on data from a systematic continuous quality improvement project in remote communities in Australia and Fiji, known as Audit and Best practice for Chronic Disease (ABCD), to synthesise lessons and discuss the potential for broader application in low and middle income countries, including Pacific Island countries and territories. They argue that the participatory action research approach supports innovation and broad-based change and the evidence it has produced extends the current knowledge base and facilitates the translation of knowledge into action, both for policy and practice. Reddy and colleagues2 describe two real world diabetes prevention programs, one in Montana based on US Diabetes Prevention Program, the other in Australia based on the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study – the two landmark randomised control trials. Using qualitative research, they sought to determine whether there were specific rural context issues involved in implementation in Montana and Victoria Australia. They conclude that there were some rural issues but overall diabetes prevention programs can be implemented in any setting urban or rural without major adaptation. Humphreys and Wakerman3 review what factors seem to contribute to successful and sustainable health systems in rural and remote communities drawing on evidence from Australia, Canada and the USA. They identify good governance, leadership and management, adequate funding infrastructure and service linkages as crucial for optimal workforce recruitment. Needs must – workforce shortages and other factors frequently lead to innovation in rural health simply because necessity is the mother of invention.4 These papers cover the two great questions of rural health – how much can we explain the disparity by understanding risk factors for chronic diseases and how much of the disparity is the result of poor access to services?5 The authors of these papers have made a substantial contribution to our understanding of how we can improve rural health. The Australian government has policies to reduce rural and remote health disparities. Medical Schools are funded to ensure that 25% of students complete 50% of their clinical training in rural areas. Eleven University Departments of Rural Health around the country have been established by the Government to improve the health, health services and workforce of rural and remote Australia. Disparities in health due to rurality are well recognised internationally but the causes and consequences are incompletely understood.5 What is it about rurality that explains increased morbidity and mortality? We still need to see a comparative study of risk factors that takes into account socioeconomic circumstances such as education, income and occupation to separate out the explanation for rural excess morbidity and mortality. We are fortunate to have the publicly funded infrastructure to be able to undertake research into rural health, health services and workforce. We have also come of age. In the first round of Centres for Research Excellence in Primary Health Care funded by the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, rural and remote researchers performed outstandingly.6 One centre is looking at accountable and equitable primary health care provision in rural and remote Australia, a second is looking at building quality, governance, performance and sustainability in primary health care, and the third looks at indigenous primary care interventions in chronic disease. Two of the centres are rurally or remotely based and the third has a large rural component. By comparison with University Departments of General Practice, University Departments of Rural Health are well represented including Broken Hill, Centre for Remote Health, Greater Green Triangle and the School of Rural Health Bendigo. Rural health research in Australia has come of age. A new model of rural research is emerging. Each of the Centres is a multisite collaboration frequently involving metropolitan colleagues with distinguished track records in research. The next five years will see a flourishing of rural and remote research particularly since the centres have a role in building capacity at the postdoctoral level. Sound the trumpet!

The establishment of new rural communities is a major measure for solving the “three rural issues” and promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas throughout the country. Compared with the management of traditional rural communities, the management of new rural communities has significant features, but there are also many difficulties that have not existed in the past. In recent years, with the rapid development of China's economy and the deepening of rural grass-roots reforms, corresponding social conditions have been created to promote the transformation of the management mode of villages, and many local governments are also searching for scientific and feasible development modes that are in line with the actual situation of the new rural communities, in order to promote the sustainable development of the new rural construction. In this process, some urgent problems also greatly affect the construction of new rural communities, and need to be corrected in a timely manner to ensure the smooth progress of the construction of new rural communities.

When the first issue of RSEQ was published 30 years ago, I was unaware of special education and its positive impact. Like most individuals educated in the 70s and early 80s, I saw few students with special needs in school. I grew up in rural Utah where students were bused from miles away to attend the local elementary. I know we had individuals with special needs in our small community. I vividly remember a neighbor boy with Down syndrome riding his noisy bicycle that had a playing card attached to the spokes of the front wheel. However, I have no clear recollection of Sam attending our elementary. I also remember who started out with our first grade class. She was a sweet girl who invited us to play with her jacks or jump rope at recess. Unfortunately (for those of us without our own set of jacks), Rachel was quickly moved to the third grade because she could read and do math better than the rest of us. From these recollections, I assume that special education was done outside of the grade-specific general education classroom. I went on to college in the early 80s and decided to pursue my degree and secondary teaching licensure. It was only due to a recommendation from my advisor that I went on to pursue a career in special education. My advisor stressed the need for special educators, especially in rural areas. I was lucky enough to be introduced to ACRES during my graduate work. I was glad that there was an organization focused on rural issues. Coming from a rural community, I know that many do not understand the unique challenges faced by those in rural areas. I also was impressed with Rural Special Education Quarterly (RSEQ). RSEQ is a wonderful oudet for those seeking to publish research in the field of rural special education. It is only through publications, such as RSEQ, where rural issues are stressed that positive changes in rural special education can occur. It is with great pleasure that I comment on the articles chosen for this retrospective. The classic articles in this issue address a wide array of topics still relevant today. Topics include distance education in special education teacher preparation, community-based rehabilitation, vocational competencies, and identification of gifted and talented students. Each of these articles stress the unique challenges faced by rural communities addressing issues in special education. The authors have illustrated how specific interventions and programs can overcome rural setting obstacles. In this issue, a 1999 article by Ludlow and Brannan presents distance education programs in special education teacher preparation. In the introduction, the authors mention that distance education is seen as a way to overcome teacher shortages. Unfortunately, in this era of increased standards and budgetary concerns, special education teacher shortages continue. In a listing put out in March 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education, 48 of the 50 states reported special education teacher shortages. These shortages are of particular concern in rural areas where populations are more static and have less access to traditional teacher training facilities. It is no surprise that rural areas are still relying on distance education as a way to overcome these shortages. In an act of prescience, Ludlow and Brannan predicted an increase in competition in distance education programs to attract students. This is clearly the case today. What students need to consider in choosing a program is the quality of components used. Ludlow and Brannan describe diese components from a perspective that still has relevance today. In another article, Zambone and Suarez (1996) describe community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programs used by developing nations as a way to overcome some of the obstacles of relying on institutional-based programs. In many of these settings, individuals with disabilities lack access to institutional programs due to their location. The authors call for rural communities in the U. …

The world face issues such as the environment and food, the development of agriculture is also the future focus On Global Climate Change. But Taiwan's agricultural development strategy did not respond to future trends. In recent years, the farmland build farmhouse or collective farmhouses, can't at the same time take care of agriculture and rural development, therefore become land speculation the farmland. In this case, Government to introduce new the ”Rural regeneration Act”, to solve the old rural issues，But bad planning program not sustainable and can't having regard to agricultural development from rural. Rural and Agricultural, need for holistic planning concept, and into the ecological thinking, to sustainable rural and agricultural. This study, the concept of eco-villages as rural planning policy direction. An application for “Satiau Village and Sanzun Village Sinzhou Township Changhua County” rural area. Real base simulation planning project, this thesis is divided into two parts, as follows: The first part of the finishing on agricultural land policy issues and relevant laws and regulations in rural areas, and collect information about the eco-village planning concepts, from sorting out the general principles and the context as a generic model. Rural communities in agricultural land policy planning, through researcher field investigation, the from actual rural context in sorting out the principles of the eco-village concept in local mode into practical application, as “Satiaozun village” rural settlement planning operation basis. The second part to assume that the simulation rural ecological community planning, re-integration of the villages within the land reuse. Hope to explore it meets the ground mode of operation planning program, and rural regeneration development direction, further discussion of the possibility of their practice. Policy issues to submit response strategies, and the implementation of the eco-village concept after finishing in the actual geographic environment ,the conditional to regulate drawing surface rendering, as a reflection of the future sustainable development of rural planning.

Participatory action research for rural and regional development

Rural people and communities experience disproportionate health and social risks in the United States, and university systems, especially those that are federal land-grant institutions, have an obligation to direct academic attention and resources to all communities, not just the predominantly urban areas where most flagship academic institutions are located. In 2020, the University of Minnesota Rural Health Program established the Rural Collective, a forum for networking and collaboration on rural issues across the university system. We conducted a survey of Rural Collective members in summer 2024 to highlight aspects of the Rural Collective that members find most beneficial. Survey results (N = 66) indicated that members found virtual meetings and weekly emails to be beneficial features of the program. Nearly 90% reported that they have learned something new about rural work since joining, and more than 71% reported that joining the Rural Collective has led to a new connection or collaboration in their rural-focused work. Importantly, 96% of respondents believed that the Rural Collective is addressing an important need at the university, a finding that may be relevant for other institutions where there are obligations and potentially unmet needs related to rural community engagement, rural health promotion, and rural-focused academic work.

This edition of the Australian Journal of Rural Health is a thematic issue with a special focus on rural mental health. In 1993, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Human Rights and Mental Illness report (The Burdekin Report) focused public attention on many mental health problems including those in rural areas. 1 Two chapters of that report presented findings regarding people in rural and isolated areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They highlighted issues including the distribution of services, difficulties for health professionals and historical and cultural issues regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. More recently, The Burden of Disease and Injury in Australia report found that mental illness is a major cause of morbidity and disability. 2 To date, there is little available research evidence detailing mental health morbidity and mortality patterns in rural and remote areas. As everywhere, environmental and cultural factors are likely to be key determinants of mental health in these areas. When asked, people in small rural communities describe a range of positive and negative aspects of the rural lifestyle that affect health and wellbeing. 3 Generally, however, they do not recognise the impact of the rural culture with its combination of close-knit communities emphasising mutual support, together with independence and self reliance. Often mental illness is seen as ‘weakness’ and those suffering more serious mental illnesses are stigmatised by the rural community. Three of the articles in this edition explore conceptual aspects of rural mental health. Wainer and Chesters 4 explore the distinction between mental illness and mental health in the rural context, drawing on historical perspectives and personal experiences of individual case examples. Subsequently, they describe the determinants of positive mental health in a rural context before concluding that there is a need for balanced social and economic developments as well as improved mental health services in rural and remote areas. Fuller et al. explore the ‘definition’ of mental health problems as perceived by people in rural and remote areas. 5 This research report confirms the reluctance of rural people to acknowledge mental health problems and the stigma associated with formal mental health services as well as the influence of rural and remote circumstances. The third conceptual article explores the gender roles and the emotional distress of women in urban, rural and remote areas of Queensland. 6 The study found that positive gender roles are more frequent in rural and remote areas and associated with lower levels of emotional distress. The authors’ conclusion is that an understanding of rural and remote mental health requires more sophisticated analysis than that based only on geographical location. The authors suggest that factors such as gender roles and other aspects of the rural culture may be important. Three of the articles are focused on clinical service delivery in rural and remote areas with a common emphasis on mutual support of rural health-care providers. Allison et al. evaluate a pilot clinical intervention in a rural setting. Their findings suggest that targeted short-term specialist interventions may often bring substantial improvements for mild to moderate mental health problems in rural and remote areas. 7 Malcolm, in her paper entitled A primary mental health-care model for rural Australia: Outcomes for doctors and the community, describes a successful mental health services delivery model with an emphasis on multidisciplinary teamwork in the rural setting. 8 Harvey describes the genesis and development of the rural psychologists’ network, which provides professional support and communication for counselling psychologists in rural and remote areas. 9 A recurring theme through several of the articles is the need for mental health service delivery models that are effective and successful in the context of rural community attitudes, geographically dispersed populations and serious workforce shortages. Local generalist nurses and doctors are the main providers of mental health care in small rural and remote communities. The quality and effectiveness of their services are likely to be enhanced where they are supported by distant specialist services and health-care providers. These specialist services and providers should fulfil a true consultant role, providing support, guidance and training to the on-the-ground practitioners in small communities. The final article in this thematic issue reports an initiative that is expected to assist workforce recruitment in the medium to long term. 10 The placement of nursing students in rural and remote mental health clinical attachments not only improves the students’ knowledge and understanding of rural and remote mental health issues, but is likely, in some cases, to raise the students’ interest in pursuing their careers in a rural setting. All the articles raise challenging questions that should stimulate considerable thought and discussion among readers. As always, letters to the editor responding to and debating issues raised by these articles are most welcome. I look forward to your comments.