Rural Geography Research Articles

Perinatal psychiatric practitioner consultation program delivers rapid response to OB/GYN practitioners.

Screening and treatment initiation for perinatal psychiatric conditions is a recommended competency in OB/GYN practitioners, yet perinatal psychiatry is rapidly evolving. Practitioner-to-psychiatrist consultation programs have the potential to improve the management of psychiatric conditions in perinatal women. This study describes utilization of a statewide perinatal psychiatric consultation service by OB/GYN practitioners through examination of the volume, responsivity, content and outcomes of clinical inquiries, and satisfaction. This quality improvement study describes the 460 telephone or e-mail consultations requested by OB/GYN practitioners over 2 years and housed within a REDCap database. Data include the characteristics of consult users, month-over-month and total utilization, the patient's perinatal status, the reason for contact, current symptoms and medications, and the consulting psychiatrist recommendations. Practitioner satisfaction with consultation is also described. After completion of triage, the psychiatrist returned the practitioner's call ≤5min in 59% of consultations. The most common inquiries were for pregnant (64%) women for depressive (51%) or anxiety (46%) symptoms with 47% of inquiries reporting the patient was currently taking a psychiatric medication. Had consultation not been available, referral to mental health (41%) or starting a medication (15%) were most often reported. This perinatal psychiatric consultation service rapidly and effectively met the needs of practitioners practicing in OB/GYN settings across a state having a critical psychiatry shortage and varying urban and rural geography. Future recommendations include the assessment of direct patient outcomes, practitioner skill attainment, and long-term cost savings of this perinatal psychiatric consultation model.

Operating characteristics of the factor flow networks in rural areas: A case study of a typical industrial town in China.

The networks of factor flows in rural areas are the main support for rural revitalization, which has become one of the research trends in rural geography. Taking a typical industrial town in China as an example, the study explored the operating characteristics of rural factor flow networks and the relations of multi-factor flows based on the social survey method and fine-grained flows data. Results showed that population flows, capital flows and policy flows increased significantly in rural areas. Thereinto, population flows, especially labor flows, mainly ran into the townships and industrial cluster villages, so did capital inflows and outflows, while policy flows ran around the township. The villages with dense population and capital flows formed the "central villages", which had exceeded the township in the two flow networks. Policy flows and capital flows played a guiding role in population flows, so did the policy flows on the capital flows. Meanwhile, the population flows and the capital flows could reinforce each other. In conclusion, a multi-center structure network with the separation of economic center and administrative center had been formed in rural areas. And there was a close interaction between these factor flows. Furthermore, the theoretical model of town-village symbiotic network was constructed.

Clinical demographic characteristics and ocular Co-morbidities associated with Secondary lipid keratopathy at a tertiary care center

ObjectiveTo describe the demographics and clinical profile of Secondary Lipid Keratopathy in patients presenting to a multi-tier ophthalmology hospital network in India. MethodsThis cross-sectional hospital-based study included 3,082,727 new patients presenting between August 2010 and December 2021. Patients with a clinical diagnosis of Secondary Lipid Keratopathy in at least one eye were included as cases. The data were collected using an electronic medical record system. ResultsOverall, 389 (0.01%) patients were diagnosed with Secondary Lipid Keratopathy. Majority were males (53.5%) and had a unilateral affliction (82.8%). The most common age group at presentation was during the sixth decade of life with 76 (19.5%) patients. The overall prevalence was higher in patients from a lower socio-economic status (0.02%) presenting from the rural geography (0.01%) and in individuals related to agriculture work/ manual labor (0.02%). Of the 456 eyes, mild or no visual impairment (<20/70) was noted in 194 (42.5%) eyes followed by moderate visual impairment (>20/70 to 20/200) in 81 (17.8%) eyes. At presentation, the mean visual acuity was 0.96 ± 1.07 log MAR units. The most associated corneal condition was non-HSV corneal scar (36.8%), followed by spheroidal degeneration (19.7%) and HSV keratitis in (18.6%). ConclusionSecondary lipid keratopathy more commonly affected males presenting during the sixth decade of life. Most (42.5%) of the eyes had mild or no visual impairment. Corneal scar (non-HSV) was the most associated corneal condition in both unilateral and bilateral cases. HSV keratitis was the commonest corneal condition in those between 20 and 40 years, followed by those above 40 years.

Shrinking geographies or challenged rurality’s? Three points of reflection – commentary to Syssner

By asking ‘what could geographers do for shrinking geographies’ Josefina Syssner offers a very comprehensive overview of what has been and should be on the research agenda’s for understanding rural shrinking geographies. In this commentary I would like to address three issues related to the Fennia keynote, that may add an additional perspective or a moment of reflection: 1) the issue of demographic change, rather than shrinkage, 2) how we can imagine the future of shrinking geographies, and 3) what Nordic perspectives have to offer. In conclusion, I believe that peripheral geographies, and challenged rurality’s deserve a key position within geography and related disciplines, and call for a repolitisation of the topic: what we research, how we conceptualise or even advice has consequences for those living and imagining futures in peripheral, rural and depopulating regions.

Impact of Chinese-Style Fiscal Decentralization on Urban–Rural Integration: Based on Factor Allocation

The urban–rural relationship has been a critical issue in studies on urban and rural geography. Urban–rural integration development (URI), as an integral part of the urban–rural relationship, needs to be understood under an integrated theoretical framework. Based on the conceptual analysis from productivism to post-productivism, this study constructs a multidimensional framework to understand urban–rural integration, restructuring from five layers that integrate population, space, economic, social, and environmental concerns, and the revised dynamic coordination coupling degree (CCD) model is used to measure the level of URI. Many studies have focused on the connection between URI and factor allocation. However, it is yet to be determined how both fiscal decentralization and factor allocation are linked with URI. This study focuses on this unexplored topic, and the impact mechanism among URI, factor allocation, and Chinese-style fiscal decentralization is investigated by adopting spatial econometric models, for achieving the high-quality development of China’s urban–rural relations. Empirical analysis of China’s three major urban agglomerations reveals that there are promising signs in China’s urban–rural integration development, with an orderly and coordinated structure shaping over the period 2003–2017. The rationality of factor allocation depends heavily on the power comparison between the helping hand and the grabbing hand of local governments under Chinese-style fiscal decentralization. Moderate fiscal decentralization, with a perfect market and social security system, leads to the free flow of factors and promotes urban–rural integration. By contrast, excessive fiscal decentralization causes resource misallocation and hinders urban–rural integration development. In light of our empirical evidence, the coordinated development of small- and medium-sized cities and subcities in urban agglomerations is suggested, it is highly necessary to establish a perfect social and employment security system. In addition, a reasonable space planning system for land use needs to be constructed by China’s governments at all levels. Chinese local governments should pay more attention to rural development in their jurisdiction by stimulating their information advantages under Chinese-style fiscal decentralization.

Conceptualizing New Materialism in Geographical Studies of the Rural Realm

Geographic analysis in rural areas has been dominated in recent decades by socio-economic and socio-political perspectives. The new materialism can constitute a way of progress in rural geographical studies that involve the material and the human in the form of hybrid experiences. Materiality can be expressed in three ways: (1) the surface matter that corresponds to the traditional elements of the material rural space, (2) the materiality that would be associated with a joint and undifferentiated vision of human artefacts in a village, mainly the set of rural houses and (3) the experimental materiality that has an individual dimension, the result of the multiple processes of destruction, revival and reconstruction that simultaneously happen in one place. The experimental materiality is of the most interest for geographic analysis since it is where the materiality of the rural house and the individual are hybridized in the process of recovery of the traditional rural house. In the process of recovery of materialities, binary oppositions built in the rigid framework of modernity can be dissolved and established fluid postmodern alternatives co-produced between people and materiality. The new materialism in rural geography can be an alternative path that allows analyzing heterogeneous realities in a hybrid way and contributing in a practical context to the development of new rural policies.

Research on the Rural Geography Research Course in Senior High School Based on the PTBL Teaching Model—A Case Study of Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province

Research on the Rural Geography Research Course in Senior High School Based on the PTBL Teaching Model—A Case Study of Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province

The Correlation Effects and Mechanisms of Rural Restructuring and Transformation: A Case Study of the Jianghan Plain in China

The rural decline accompanying industrialization and urbanization is a lingering puzzle in human society, while promoting rural restructuring and transformation is considered the primary task of contemporary rural development. It is the historical mission of rural geography research in the new era to scientifically understand the characteristics of contemporary rural development and accurately explain the patterns of rural reconstructing and transformation. In this paper, the Jianghan Plain in China is selected for the case study. Characteristic indexes are selected based on the “structure–function” correlation to interpret rural restructuring. Measurement benchmarks are unified through functional value marketization to interpret rural transformation. Multiple statistical analysis is adopted to identify the action paths and decipher the correlation mechanisms. The case study yields the following findings. (1) The rural restructuring on Jianghan Plain has spatial and temporal differences. Rural restructuring has roughly gone through the social restructuring-led, economic restructuring-led, and spatial restructuring-led evolution stages, showing spatially divergent patterns with high rural comprehensive restructuring index (RRC) areas concentrated around the main traffic arteries and linear low RRC areas along the Yangtze River banks. (2) Rural restructuring and transformation on Jianghan Plain show significant correlation effects. During the study period, the rural transformation magnitude (RTM) continues to increase and shows a spatial map similar to that of rural restructuring, with economic-spatial restructuring-led and economic-social restructuring-led as the main modes of rural transformation. (3) The correlation mechanism of rural restructuring and transformation on Jianghan Plain has characteristics typical of less-developed agricultural areas. The economic restructuring led by agricultural land changes and the social restructuring led by rural population outward migration remain the main paths of rural transformation, and the agricultural function still plays an important role in some rural areas. The quantitative measurement of rural region functions in this study need further optimization, and the refinement and accuracy of regional function accounting needs further exploration. The research results are expected to provide a scientific basis for stimulating rural development and promoting sustainable rural development in contemporary developing countries.

Making space through finance: Spatial conceptions of the rural in China’s rural financial reforms

By forming a dialogue between financial and rural geography, this paper explores the co-constitution of rurality and finance. It does so by approaching financial policies as a genre of spatial discourse in which particular spatial imaginaries are reified. Through an examination of China’s rural financial reforms, this paper illustrates how the rural, as a spatial signifier, is imagined and represented in financial policies and how these spatial conceptions of the rural influence financial processes. The paper argues that China’s rural financial reforms are built on ambiguous and contentious notions of rurality. It therefore calls for greater sensitivity toward the discursive dimension of spatial production in financial processes and the varied conceptions and representations of spaces that are the targets of financial intervention.

Rising high-acuity emergency care services independently billed by advanced practice providers, 2013 to 2019.

Advanced practice providers (APPs) comprise an increasing proportion of the emergency medicine (EM) workforce, particularly in rural geographies. With little known regarding potential expanding practice patterns, we sought to evaluate trends in independent emergency care services billed by APPs from 2013 to 2019. We performed a repeated cross-sectional analysis of emergency clinicians independently reimbursed for at least 50 evaluation and management (E/M) services (99281-99285, 99291) from Medicare Part B, with high-acuity services including Codes 99285 and 99291. We describe the outcome proportion of E/M services by acuity level and report at (1) the encounter level and (2) at the clinician level. We stratified analyses by clinician type and geography. A total of 47,323 EM physicians, 10,555 non-EM physicians, and 26,599 APPs were included in analyses. APPs billed emergency care services independently for 5.1% (rural 7.3%, urban 4.8%) of all high-acuity encounters in 2013, increasing to 9.7% (rural 16.4%, urban 8.8%) by 2019. At the clinician level, in 2013, the average rural-practicing APP independently billed 22.8% of services as high acuity, 72.6% as moderate acuity, and 4.5% as low acuity. By 2019, the average rural-practicing APP independently billed 36.2% of services as high acuity, representing a +58.8% relative increase from 2013. Relative increases in high-acuity visits independently billed by APPs were substantially greater when compared to EM physicians across both rural and urban geographies. In 2019, APPs billed independent services for approximately one in six high-acuity ED encounters in rural geographies and one in 11 high-acuity ED encounters in urban geographies, and well over one-third of the average APPs' encounters were for high-acuity E/M services. Given differences in training and reimbursement between clinician types, these estimates suggest further work is needed evaluating emergency care staffing decision making.

Identifying the structure of rural regional system and implications for rural revitalization: A case study of Yanchi County in northern China

Rural regional system is a geographical perspective to understand rural development and land use change. Identifying the structure of rural regional system has been the key issue in rural geography. This paper proposed a multi-dimension analysis framework and developed "Pole–Field–Zone–Network" (PFZN) to identify the structure of rural regional system. Taking Yanchi County as a case, which is in farming pastoral ecotone northern China, we integrate geospatial analysis methods to identify the structure. The results show that the structure of Yanchi’ rural regional system can be identified and divided into 23 rural revitalization poles, eight village-town spatial fields, and five rural development zones. This paper analyzes the PFZN structure of rural regional system, which cascade connects taking the development poles as the nodes, fields as the influence domain, and zones as the type of control area, and according to the regionalization results for the rural development zone, the corresponding implications of revitalization are given. It is proposed to promote the construction of central villages and towns with revitalization as the core, optimize the spatial structure and layout based on filed and zone, and build a multi-functional network structure. Then, the main function-oriented zoning for the rural areas, as well as dominant type classification and principal purpose classification of the rural regional system should also be feasible strategies for policymakers and rural revitalization planners to achieve sustainable rural development. We try to fill the gap in quantitative identification on the structure of rural regional system to enrich the research regarding the theoretical model by exploring the interaction of human-environment relationship, which has significance for the rural revitalization and sustainable development.

Distribution Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Rural Settlements in Metropolitan Fringe Area: A Case Study of Nanjing, China

Rural settlement is the core content of rural geography research. Exploring the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of rural settlements can provide reference for the optimization of rural settlements. This paper selected Nanjing as a typical case, based on remote sensing image, using R statistics, kernel density analysis, hot spot detection analysis and semi variogram function; the paper analyzed the spatial, scale and morphological distribution characteristics of rural settlements; and preliminarily analyzed the influencing factors of rural settlements distribution in the metropolitan fringe area. The results showed that: (1) The spatial distribution of rural settlements generally presented a “multi-core” center, and a spatial distribution trend of stepwise decline from the core to the periphery, showing a typical “core-edge” structure. (2) There was a significant spatial difference in the scale distribution of rural settlements, which was characterized by a gradual decrease in the scale of rural settlements with the increase in the distance from the central urban area. (3) The morphological distribution of rural settlements showed spatial differentiation, and the morphological types of settlements mainly included strip, arcbelt, cluster and scatter. (4) The distribution of rural settlements was affected by such factors as terrain, river system, traffic, economic and social development, cultural and policy. The distribution of rural settlements had the location orientation of “low altitude, water affinity and road affinity”. The increase in agricultural population, rural economic development, cultural and policy factors played an important role in the distribution of rural settlements in the metropolitan fringe area.

Intersectionality of rural community, geography and gender in the careers of young adults

ABSTRACT Young adults (21-to-35-years) from six rural coastal villages in South India described their past and current careers and means of livelihood; an intergenerational comparison was also made. Sixty-eight young men and women engaged in paid work were interviewed; supplementary data was obtained about 224 young adults co-residing with the 68 interviewed participants. The careers and livelihoods of these young adults were marked by intersectionality of rural community, geography and gender. The geography of a coastal region privileged men in having coastal/marine careers whereas many women played supportive roles in their spouse’s/brother’s coastal livelihood. The fewer women engaged in paid work were employed in education, banking/finance, and nursing sectors. Implications for career guidance programmes for the rural population are discussed.

Red outposts in a hostile landscape: People's houses, People's parks and the reconstruction of rural southern Sweden's political geography, 1889–1909

Organizing rural workers has always proved to be a challenge for the labour movement. This was especially the case in Scandinavia where well into the industrial era, labour and property relations in the agricultural countryside remained essentially feudal in character. Nonetheless, and especially in the rich agricultural districts of the southernmost province of Skåne, the Swedish labour movement had succeeded spectacularly by the interwar years. Perhaps unintuitively, a key to its success was that it focused as much money and energy on constructing new spaces of culture and leisure – so-called People's Houses and People's Parks – as it did to direct workplace organizing. Drawing on Kevin Cox's concepts of “spaces of dependence” and “spaces of engagement,” this paper explains how and why Sweden's labour unions succeeded in remaking Skåne's political geography and transformed the region into one of the strongest social-democratic districts in early-twentieth century Sweden.

Severe Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Risk at the Intersection of Rurality, Race and Ethnicity, and Medicaid.

We examined differences in rates of severe maternal morbidity and mortality (SMMM) among Medicaid-funded compared with privately insured hospital births through specific additive and intersectional risk by rural or urban geography, race and ethnicity, and clinical factors. We used maternal discharge records from childbirth hospitalizations in the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's National Inpatient Sample from 2007 to 2015. We calculated predicted probabilities using weighted multivariable logistic regressions to estimate adjusted rates of SMMM, examining differences in rates by payer, rurality, race and ethnicity, and clinical factors. To assess the presence and extent of additive risk by payer, with other risk factors, on rates of SMMM, we estimated the proportion of the combined effect that was due to the interaction. In this analysis of 6,357,796 hospitalizations for childbirth, 2,932,234 were Medicaid funded and 3,425,562 were privately insured. Controlling for sociodemographic and clinical factors, the highest rate of SMMM (224.9 per 10,000 births) occurred among rural Indigenous Medicaid-funded births. Medicaid-funded births among Black rural and urban residents, and among Hispanic urban residents, also experienced elevated rates and significant additive interaction. Thirty-two percent (Bonferroni-adjusted 95% confidence interval, 19%-45%) of SMMM cases among patients with chronic heart disease were due to payer interaction, and 19% (Bonferroni-adjusted 95% confidence interval, 17%-22%) among those with cesarean birth were due to the interaction. Heightened rates of SMMM among Medicaid-funded births indicate an opportunity for tailored state and federal policy responses to address the particular maternal health challenges faced by Medicaid beneficiaries, including Black, Indigenous, and rural residents.

Geographical analysis of building materials in pirzin Studies in rural geography

Geographical analysis of building materials in pirzin Studies in rural geography

Rewriting the hills: Youth sociality as a mode of navigating unemployment in a context of outmigration in North India

AbstractThis article examines the ways in which educated yet unemployed young people attempt to configure ways of being productive in a small hill town in North India. Young people who do not migrate to large urban centres from this township are the subject of contradictory discourses: in some moments they are seen as an antidote to the ‘problem of migration’, but in other moments they are ridiculed for not making good use of their time. Both discourses suggest a present wherein young people are not productive. Drawing on ethnographic material gathered over a ten-month period, this article frames youth sociality as a mode registering a sense of productivity and navigating unemployment. I argue that while hanging out at a computer shop, young men were distancing themselves from notions of idling and creating masculine youth cultures in which they sought to situate themselves as productive young people. I make this argument by unpacking exchanges between these young men and by analysing the tangible ways they helped the shop function. I also draw debates about youth sociality into dialogue with theoretical insights from rural geography to illuminate how educated youth attempt to imbue rural and peri-urban space with new possibilities. I show how educated youth attempt to reanimate rural space and forge affirmative rural futures by emphasizing their connections with Indian modernity. Attending to the ways in which educated yet unemployed youth attempt to situate themselves within productive relations is set to become of increasing importance given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Developing food markets in Vanuatu: Re-examining remote island geographies of food production and trade

Vanuatu is experiencing urban nutrition insecurity, despite having a population primarily engaged in agriculture. As Vanuatu is an island archipelago, this is often attributed to poor shipping links between islands, which separate rural producers and urban consumers. However, closer attention to rural island geographies reveals that substantial differences in livelihoods materialise over small distances. This study explores social, economic and biophysical features of rural food production and trade in an area of West Ambae, Vanuatu. A survey of 94 rural smallholding households was undertaken. The survey reveals that the largest food producing households are often very remote farmers for whom spatially situated social and economic features represent a significant barrier to food trade. Closer attention to these remote island geographies of food production and trade are needed to support effective policy for the development of a sustainable and resilient food system.

Rekinning the homeland: Rurality, gender-based genocide, and Indigenous sovereignty in colonial Canada

In the colonial state of Canada, rurality is quintessentially necropolitical, a technology of colonial nation building that has forcibly displaced hundreds of sovereign Indigenous nations to accommodate white occupation. Throughout vast rural social geographies that remain conservative political strongholds, Indigenous peoples living in their ancestral homelands are positioned as contaminants of dignified white rural life and obstacles to food and resource exploitation, agri-industrial expansion, and growing multicultural diversity. Under colonial rural logics, Indigenous bodies are disposable and ungrievable, in deeply gendered and sexualized ways. In this paper, I draw on Achille Mbembé’s concept of necropolitics to examine rural genocide as a form of colonial and neocolonial settler placemaking, with a specific focus on gender-based violence as one form of enacted necropolitics. I examine how stark racial rural inequities precipitate racialized-gendered death by enabling incessant white entitlement to Indigenous lands and bodies, allowing what the United Nations has called the gender-based genocide of Indigenous girls, women, and 2Spirit people to occur with impunity. I then consider the imperial logics of homesteading as a new/old settler tactic emerging under new anthropogenic and pandemic-related pressures, where urbanites seeking rural escapes fuel the colonial appropriation and commodification of sacred Indigenous land-based knowledges while eroding already precarious Indigenous territories. I conclude by exploring how reimplicating increasingly mobile and urbanized Indigenous young people in kinscapes—mobile, temporal circles of relations with their kin and homelands—might fortify vital Indigenous land and body sovereignties and unsettle colonial necropolitical rural ontologies.

Recover Old Geographical Materialities in Rural Areas: Key Politics and Processes of (Dis)assemblages

The current rural geography is at a crossroads of theoretical options. Geographical studies on processes of rural change usually have a social perspective, based on the loss of traditional populations and the immigration of new populations, and on the analysis of social-territorial conflicts between the locals and the newcomers. Rematerializing rural studies through experimental materiality is an interesting option to revitalize rural geography. The experimental process of recovering rural houses generates a fluid hybridization process between human-materiality realities, but it can also lead to a disassemblage process between people and materiality (rural house). In this contribution, various types of disassemblage processes of recovered material realities (rural houses) and the people who carried out the experimental recovery of the house are reviewed. The methodology is qualitative and is based on the examination of six case studies in rural areas of Spain. The disassemblage process generates new pluralities and material realities in peripheral rural communities. Keywords: materiality, rural, geography, artifacts