Characteristics Of Rural Communities Research Articles

Working From Within: The Rural Community Participatory Design Framework.

This article describes the development of the rural community-based participatory design framework to guide healthcare design teams in their integration of rural community and clinical voice during the planning, design, and construction of a healthcare facility. Rural communities are facing an alarming rate of healthcare facility closures, provider shortages, and dwindling resources, which are negatively impacting population health outcomes. A prioritized focus on rural care access and delivery requires design teams to have a deeper understanding of the contextual considerations necessary for a successful healthcare facility project, made possible through engagement and partnership with rural dwelling community members and healthcare teams. The rural community participatory design framework is adapted from the rural participatory research model, selected due to its capture of key concepts and characteristics of rural communities. Underpinning theories included rural nursing theory and theory of the built environment. The framework encompasses healthcare facility project phases, key translational concepts, and common traits across rural communities and cultures. As a middle-range theoretical framework, it is being tested in a current healthcare project with a Critical Access Hospital in Montana to facilitate design team and stakeholder collaboration. The rural community participatory design framework may be utilized by design teams as a means of familiarization with rural cultures, norms, values, and critical needs, which relate to meaningful design. The framework further enables design teams to critically appraise best practices of stakeholder engagement throughout the project lifecycle.

Informing the surgical workforce pathway: how rural community characteristics matter.

Rural areas worldwide face a general surgeon shortage, limiting rural populations' access to surgical care. While individual and practice-related factors have been well-studied in the US, we need a better understanding of the role of community characteristics in surgeons' location choices. This study aimed to understand the deeper meanings surgeons associated with community characteristics in order to inform efforts spanning the rural surgeon workforce pathway, from early educational exposures, and undergraduate and graduate medical education, to recruitment and retention. We conducted a qualitative, descriptive interview study with general surgeons in the Midwestern US about the role and meaning of community characteristics, exploring their backgrounds, education, practice location choices, and future plans. We focused on rural surgeons and used an urban comparison group. We used convenience and snowball sampling, then conducted interviews in-person and via phone, and digitally recorded and professionally transcribed them. We coded inductively and continued collecting data until reaching code saturation. We used thematic network analysis to organize codes and draw conclusions. A total of 37 general surgeons (22 rural and 15 urban) participated. Interviews totaled over 52 hours. Three global themes described how rural surgeons associated different, often deeper, meanings with certain community characteristics compared to their urban colleagues: physical environment symbolism, health resources' relationship to scope of practice, and implications of intense role overlap (professional and personal roles). All interviewees spoke to all three themes, but the meanings they found differed importantly between urban and rural surgeons. Physical landscapes and community infrastructure were representative of autonomy and freedom for rural surgeons. They also shared how facilities, equipment, staff, staff education, and surgical partners combined to create different scopes of practice than their urban counterparts experienced. Often, rural surgeons found these resources dictated when they needed to transfer patients to higher-acuity facilities. Rural surgeons experienced role overlap intensely, as they cared for patients who were also friends and neighbors. Rural surgeons associated different meanings with certain community characteristics than their urban counterparts. As they work with prospective rural surgeons, educators and rural communities should highlight how health resources can translate into desired scopes of practice. They also should share with trainees the realities of role overlap, both how intense and stressful it can be but also how gratifying. Educators should include the rural social context in medical and surgical education, looking for even more opportunities to collaborate with rural communities to provide learners with firsthand experiences of rural environments, resources, and role overlap.

Empowering Rural Community of Laguna for Maximum Societal Impact through Skills Acquisition

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the level to which rural community are empowered through skill acquisition programs. Objectively, this study intended to: 1.) describe the present socio-economic characteristics of rural community of Laguna, 2.) examine the available skills acquired by rural community, 3.) investigate the skills acquisition that will be needed for their empowerment, 4.) determine the relevancy of skills acquisition for self-reliance among the rural community, and 5.) ascertain the factors discouraging/hindering rural community from participating in skill acquisition program. This paper measures the social and economic impact of training and skills development on rural community who participated in training provided by social purpose. An implicit policy assumption is that such organizations will be contributed to social and economic regeneration. Examining the costs and benefits of training to trainees. The results may demonstrate that while changes to both the economic and social well‐being of trainees may occur. Furthermore, social purpose needed to be demonstrated the socioeconomic benefits of their training programs to secure future funding, public or private, but proving their successful delivery even if it may be difficult to determine.

A literature review of smart technology domains with implications for research on smart rural communities

This literature review examines empirical research on smart technologies in eight domains and seeks to analyse implications for smart rural communities research. The development and implementation of smart technologies has the potential to improve various aspects of life in rural areas, including healthcare, mobility, and governance. However, the adoption of these technologies also raises important questions about their relation to communities. The existing literature is reviewed to examine the key findings and knowledge gaps. By using a sociotechnical perspective and considering the specific characteristics of rural communities, the discussion is focused on how smart technologies can contribute to rural contexts. Further, policy implications are considered, encompassing the requirement for a holistic and inclusive approach to the implementation of smart technologies in rural areas. Implementation should address the specific needs, challenges, economic and infrastructural conditions, social structures, and cultural contexts of the respective communities. Future research and exploration of smart community concepts in rural contexts are suggested to improve smart technology implementation.

Development of Small-Medium Industry in Urban Kampong to Realize a Sustainable Creative Economy Area

The concept of the creative economy has emerged recently, one of which is the emergence of small and medium industries (IKM) in urban kampong. The creative economy is the driving force for the nation's economy, so its existence needs to be managed and developed. The emergence of the IKM creative economy concept is inseparable from the cultural characteristics of rural communities, which have characteristics of "gotong royong" and "guyub". The community's cultural character triggers the emergence of creative economic areas in urban kampong corridors. This study aims to determine the sustainability of the creative economy area in urban kampong now and in the future by referring to the Penta helix concept. The method used is qualitative, namely conducting observations and interviews and exploring the research that has been carried out regarding the title and the actions needed for the sustainability of the current and future creative economy areas. The location used as a case study is an urban kampong settlement in the Paseban area of Central Jakarta. The results of this study indicate that the sustainability of the creative economy area in urban kampong settlements has not been fully implemented according to the penta helix model, nor has it been implemented sustainably. The researcher's suggestion that the community's creative economy area is always sustainable is that the Penta helix model must always be applied, and cooperation between the 5 elements must always be compact.

Age-friendly attributes of a rural town in Aotearoa New Zealand

The rapid ageing of rural populations has highlighted the importance of ensuring environments are appropriate for the changing needs and preferences of older adults ageing in rural communities. Recent evidence indicates understanding existing characteristics of rural communities may contribute to the successful implementation and sustainability of age-friendly programs. Drawing on a case study this paper explored older adults (n = 15), and retail and service operators’ (n = 16) perceptions and experiences of existing attributes that contribute to the age-friendliness of a small rural town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Four themes captured existing age-friendly attributes: community stewardship, older adults as custodians of their environment, strong social networks and involvement, and community responsiveness to older adults. The findings contribute to what is known about rural age-friendliness and will inform policy makers planning age-friendly programs. Building on existing attributes should facilitate implementation and promote the sustainability of local age-friendly initiatives. To avoid undermining existing community strengths, older adults and stakeholders from rural communities should be actively engaged in planning and implementing age-friendly initiatives from the outset.

Analysis of the Socioeconomic Characteristics of the People of Kutalimbaru Sub-District Deli Serdang Regency

The purpose of this study was to analyze the socioeconomic characteristics of the people of Kutalimbaru District, Deli Serdang Regency. This study used primary and secondary data types with data collection techniques, namely direct interviews with respondents with the help of questionnaires that had been prepared. The data analysis method used in this study is a quantitative descriptive analysis method. The results of the study found that the socioeconomic characteristics of rural communities in the Kutalimbaru District, Deli Serdang Regency, were farmers, breeders, private employees, and entrepreneurs. The village community is classified as a productive age of work and with an education level with the majority of high schools is a fairly good level of education. The level of public welfare is seen from their income, the majority of which is a monthly average income is a fairly good income. The research is recommended to be a reference material in policy-making to local governments related to other economic sectors in the sub-district as a support for the socioeconomic characteristics of the community as well as a reference and information on opportunities to increase the income of rural communities. Keywords: Characteristics, Income, Kutalimbaru, Society, Socioeconomics

Conditions for Collective Land Use by Community-Based Organizations: Case Study of Community Farming Enterprises in Japan

The small scale of farms and scattered farmland plots in Japanese agriculture have hindered efficient farmland utilization. We used the spatial anticommons problem as the theoretical grounding to study the conditions for collective land use by community farming enterprises. We achieved this by constructing large-scale community-level data, on community farming enterprises and community characteristics, for six prefectures in the Hokuriku and Kinki regions (12,028 rural communities). Then, using regression analysis, we examined the relationship between the collective use of farmland through collective farming enterprises and the variables related to community functions, controlling for the characteristics of rural communities and dummy variables for former municipalities. The results of the descriptive statistics and econometric analysis indicated that the level of farmland improvement projects and the scale of community functions, such as the number of local meetings, are positively associated with the collective use of farmland by community farming enterprises. These factors affecting collective actions are similar to those in the case of common pool resources in the existing literature. This finding suggests that a community-based self-governing mechanism can play an important role for the governance of underused resources, i.e., the tragedy of the anticommons, as in the case of the tragedy of the commons.

Pola Kehidupan Sosial Ekonomi dan Strategi Bertahan Masyarakat Sekitar Industri Desa Golokan Kecamatan Sidayu

This article or writing aims to determine the pattern of socio-economic life of the community around the industry and to find out the survival strategies of industrialized communities to improve socio-economic life in Golokan village. Technology that is getting more advanced, sophisticated and modern proves that the development is getting faster. Don't care about existence. So that rural areas provide options for distribution. This resulted in a transformation of livelihoods. The transition of the community to their livelihoods from the agricultural sector as farmers and agricultural laborers to the non-agricultural sector as factory workers and opening service businesses. This situation affects various aspects of community life, especially in the socio-economic life that has changed and increased. They can work in the industrial sector as employees and can open businesses. In the past, society had a strong social solidarity. However, without being based on the existence of industry, social solidarity has begun to weaken. The characteristics of rural communities are starting to fade. The more modern society becomes a heterogeneous society, individual, busy working and leaving the social activities that it has been participating in. There is a suitable example in the Sidayu Gresik market area by establishing a family relationship by giving parcels before Eid to each customer, matching the price of goods between one trader and another. Business strategy by behaving well and building social relationships.

Perilaku Keberagamaan Masyarakat Perdesaan Pasca Pembangunan PLTA Cisokan di Kabupaten Bandung Barat

This research examines the religious behavior of the people of Sukaresmi Village, Rongga District, West Bandung Regency after the construction of PLTA Cisokan, West Java. The construction of the Cisokan hydropower plant actually has a negative impact in the form of the destruction of the moral values of the Islamic religion due to the introduction of a new culture into social life. In overcoming this, religion is the key to strengthening awareness of improving the character and morals of rural communities. This awareness was influenced by political and economic dynamics which later manifested itself in an effort to revive religious traditions such as Syahriahan and Manakiban. The success in overcoming the moral decay of society is also influenced by the role of young ulama with broad scientific insight and effective communication. Through field research, interviews and document studies, this research concludes that the homogeneous characteristics of rural communities, including adherence to religion, are factors that facilitate the process of solving problems, including issues of morality and religion.

The Fine Line: Rural Justice, Public Health and Safety, and the Coronavirus Pandemic

In this article, we provide an early glimpse into how the issues of public health and safety played out in the rural United States during the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on Washington State. We utilize a combination of news articles and press releases, sheriff’s department Facebook posts, publicly available jail data, courtroom observations, in-depth interviews with those who have been held in rural jails, and interviews with rural law enforcement staff to explore this theme. As elected officials, rural sheriffs are beholden to populations that include many who are suspicious of science, liberal agendas, and anything that might threaten what they see as individual freedom. At the same time, they expect local law enforcement to employ punitive measures to control perceived criminal activity in their communities. These communities are often tightly knit, cohesive, and isolated, with high levels of social support both for community members and local leaders, including sheriffs and law enforcement. This complex social context often puts rural sheriffs and law enforcement officers in difficult positions. Given the multiple cross-pressures that rural justice systems faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore the circumstances in which they attempted to protect and advocate for the health and safety of both their incarcerated and their nonincarcerated populations. We find that certain characteristics of rural communities both help and hinder local law enforcement in efforts to combat the virus, but these characteristics typically favor informal norms of social control to govern community health. Thus, rural sheriff’s departments repeatedly chose strategies that limited their abilities to protect populations from the disease, in favor of appearing tough on crime and supportive of personal liberty.

Closing the Rural Cancer Care Gap: Three Institutional Approaches.

Patients in rural areas face limited access to medical and oncology providers, long travel times, and low recruitment to clinical trials, all of which affect quality of care and health outcomes. Rural counties also have high rates of cancer-related mortality and other negative treatment outcomes. On April 10, 2019, ASCO hosted Closing the Rural Cancer Care Gap, the second event in its State of Cancer Care in America series. The event focused on two aspects of rural cancer care: a review of the major issues and concerns in delivering rural cancer care and a discussion of creative solutions to address rural-nonrural disparities. This article draws from the event and supporting literature to summarize the challenges to delivering high-quality care in rural communities, update ASCO's workforce data on the geographic distribution of oncologists, and highlight 3 institutional approaches to addressing these challenges in diverse rural settings. The experience of the 3 institutions featured in the article suggests that increasing rural patients' access to care requires expanding services and decreasing travel distances, mitigating financial burdens when insurance coverage is limited, opening avenues to clinical trial participation, and creating partnerships between providers and community leaders to address local gaps in care. Because the characteristics of rural communities, health care resources, and patient populations are not homogeneous, rural health disparities require local solutions that are based on community needs, available resources, and trusting and collaborative partnerships.

Rural HCI Research

HCI researchers are increasingly conducting research in rural communities. This paper interrogates how rurality has been treated in previous HCI research conducted in developed and high-income countries. We draw from research outside of HCI to suggest how we can effectively engage with rurality in research. We present results of a scoping review of HCI literature that asks: 1) How do HCI researchers define rurality?; 2) How do the unique characteristics of rural communities enter into study findings?; 3) What methods are used in rural research?; and 4) Where has rural research been conducted? More than twice as many rural HCI articles have been conducted in low-income and/or developing countries than in high-income and/or developed countries. HCI researchers rarely define rurality, and when they do, they primarily define it using descriptive rather than sociocultural or symbolic definitions. Rural research findings have primarily addressed infrastructure and distance/geographic isolation as unique rural characteristics, while qualitative, observational, and cross-sectional methods dominate this research. There are further opportunities for HCI research to more productively advance understanding of what rurality is, and how it matters for sociotechnical systems.

Community resilience in Walkerton, Canada: Sixteen years post-outbreak

The implications of a public health emergency on a community may be devastating and long-term. The severity of the implications depends on the gravity of the emergency and the capacity of individuals and communities to respond to and recover from its effects. However, the long-term implications of emergencies are often excluded from disaster management research making it difficult to determine whether communities are truly able to achieve and maintain resilience post-crisis. This interdisciplinary, qualitative study examined the impacts of the May 2000 Escherichia coli outbreak in Walkerton, Canada sixteen years post-outbreak on the present-day resilience status of the community. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with a purposeful sample of 29 Walkerton community members. The data were transcribed verbatim and coded using conventional content analysis to identify themes inductively. The study's findings reveal the importance of various elements of the social capital dimension in facilitating (i.e., capacity building, positive perspective) and hindering (i.e., ongoing health effects) the community's collective resilience status today both directly and indirectly. Some elements, including local economy, local government, rural community characteristics, preparedness, and reputation act as both facilitators and barriers to the social capital component of community resilience. The findings from this work are critical for designing preparedness and recovery programs for emergency situations, particularly in rural communities. They also suggest disaster management program plans and strategies for rural communities should encompass a proactive, long-term, community-centered approach integrating social capital.

Mobilities, Fixities and Stabilities in Rural Pennsylvania's Natural Gas Boomtowns: Re‐Conceptualising Boomtown Development Through a Mobilities Lens

AbstractThe mobilities ‘turn’ within human geography and the social sciences has drawn attention to the ways in which social connections and interactions variously transcend, undo and reconfigure spatial boundaries and identities. In this study we utilise mobilities theory to analyse Marcellus Shale gas boomtown growth in Pennsylvania and the experiences of local residents living in these boomtown areas. We use data from interviews conducted in two rural counties of Pennsylvania to examine the intersection and interaction between diverse boomtown mobilities and local places. We use mobilities theory to illustrate the extent to which local experience of boomtown development is a product of the interaction between the particularities of material and ideological rural community characteristics perceived as more or less ‘fixed’, and the various externally‐originating mobilities associated with local industrial buildout.

Discussão sobre comunidade e características das comunidades rurais no município de Catalão (GO)

RESUMO Nos estudos sobre comunidade há, principalmente, duas perspectivas. As discussões clássicas consideram como principal foco a diferenciação entre comunidade e sociedade, sendo que a comunidade tem como características a homogeneidade, a base territorial e o sentimento de localidade. Já as perspectivas contemporâneas avançam nas análises ao considerar as diferenças individuais, além da base territorial não ser critério essencial para sua existência, pois é possível pertencer a uma comunidade mesmo à distância. Considerando as mudanças que o conceito de comunidade passaram e a importância do seu entendimento na atualidade, o presente artigo tem como objetivo compreender as principais discussões de comunidade e as características das comunidades rurais Custódia, Ribeirão, São Domingos e Tambiocó, no município de Catalão (GO). Os procedimentos adotados para a elaboração desse artigo foram levantamento e revisão de obras pertinente à temática e aplicação de formulário de entrevista a 75 responsáveis pelas unidades produtivas das localidades selecionadas, o que representou um percentual de 34,70% das famílias, sendo 19 (35,18%) na Custódia, 21 (35%) na Ribeirão, 17 (33,33%) na São Domingos e 18 (35,29%) na Tambiocó.

A systematic review of lifestyle interventions for chronic diseases in rural communities.

BackgroundRural Americans suffer disproportionately from lifestyle-related chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and breast cancer). Interventions that consider the distinctive characteristics of rural communities (e.g., access to healthcare, income, and education) are needed. As an initial step in planning future research, we completed a systematic review of dietary intake and physical activity interventions targeting rural populations.MethodsManuscripts focused on dietary intake and physical activity and published through March 15, 2016, were identified by use of PubMed and CINAHL databases and MeSH terms and keyword searches.ResultsA total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria. Six involved randomized controlled trials; 7 used quasi-experimental designs; 4 had a pre-/post-design; and 1 was an observational study. Eight studies were multi-site (or multi-county), and 3 focused on churches. Primary emphasis by racial/ethnic group included: African Americans (6); Whites (2); Hispanics (3); and two or more groups (7). Most studies (17) sampled adults; one included children. Two studies targeted families.ConclusionsAdditional lifestyle intervention research is needed to identify effective approaches promoting healthy diet and exercise and chronic disease prevention in rural communities. Studies that include rigorous designs, adequate sample sizes, and generalizable results are needed to overcome the limitations of published studies.

Do Modifiable Cardiovascular Risk Factors Differ By Rural Classification in Women Who Enroll in a Weight Loss Intervention?

If clinicians and researchers are aware of specific cardiovascular risks associated with women's rural status, whether it be large or small/isolated rural areas, it may help in developing more relevant rural resources. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there were differences in modifiable cardiovascular risk factors of overweight and obese rural women living in large or small/isolated rural areas. This secondary analysis examined baseline cross-sectional data from the "Web-based Weight Loss and Weight Maintenance Intervention for Older Rural Women" clinical trial. Analysis included data from 299 rural Midwestern women, ages 40-69 years with a baseline body mass index of 28-45 kg/m2, who provided rural classification data and were randomized into groups. Demographic and biomarker baseline data were used. Chi-square and independent t-tests were used for data analyses. There are no significant differences found in overweight and obese women with cardiovascular risk factors when compared to rural classification, with one exception. Total cholesterol was associated with rural classification (p=0.047), where women living in large rural areas were more likely to have elevated total cholesterol levels (≥240 mg/dL) compared to women living in small/isolated areas (18.5% vs. 10.0%, respectively). Demographic characteristics such as age and education demonstrated no significant differences by rural classification; however, the majority of women in this study were of high socioeconomic status. Although this secondary analysis found that rural women have similar cardiovascular risk factors and demographic characteristics, this study highlights the need for clinicians to carefully consider the rural community characteristics for primary prevention.

“Everybody Knows Everybody Else’s Business”—Privacy in Rural Communities

Patients have a right to privacy in a health care setting. This involves conversational discretion, security of medical records and physical privacy of remaining unnoticed or unidentified when using health care services other than by those who need to know or whom the patient wishes to know. However, the privacy of cancer patients who live in rural areas is more difficult to protect due to the characteristics of rural communities. The purpose of this article is to reflect on concerns relating to the lack of privacy experienced by cancer patients and health care professionals in the rural health care setting. In addition, this article suggests future research directions to provide much needed evidence for educating health care providers and guiding health care policies that can lead to better protection of privacy among cancer patients living in rural communities.

Ex-Offenders in Rural Settings Seeking Employment

Rural communities represent unique challenges for the reentering ex-ojfenders. In addition to having access to fewer resources, employment, and limited tax base, rural communities have a unique culture, values, and beliefs that may further increase barriers to employment for ex-offenders. The purpose of this article is to examine characteristics of rural communities that serve as barriers to employment for ex-offenders, to contrast rural and urban issues, and to examine employers' hiring practices in rural communities. Implicationsfor rehabilitation counselors are provided.