Implementing Play Streets in Low-Income Rural Communities in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 152483992095722
Author(s):  
Keshia M. Pollack Porter ◽  
Christina N. Bridges Hamilton ◽  
M. Renée Umstattd Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Play ◽  
Safe Place ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
Temporary Closure

Play streets involve the temporary closure of streets that for a specified time create a safe place for active play. Play streets have been implemented primarily in cities; it is unknown if they could be adapted and implemented in rural areas. To learn about implementation, core components of play streets and inform adaptation, we conducted systematic peer-reviewed and grey literature searches and interviews with a purposive sample of key informants. Data were analyzed by theme and used to inform implementation of play streets by four community organizations in low-income rural areas of Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas from June to September 2017. Core elements of play streets in urban areas were present in rural settings—the content (e.g., activities offered), delivery of the intervention in partnership with community members and local organizations, and reoccurrence of play streets at a single location. There were three key adaptations relating to delivery and context to consider uniquely when implementing play streets in rural areas (1) using locations other than streets, (2) varying locations to account for geographic dispersion, and (3) maximizing participation and resources by coupling play streets with community events. Play streets can be successfully implemented in rural settings with these modifications, which support feasibility, reach, and access. Play streets in rural areas should include activities for active play that are age-appropriate and fun, without necessarily tailoring content for rural areas.

TURNING FARMERS INTO SOCIAL FARMER ENTREPRENEURS FOR DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remus Runcan
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Physical Work ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural Development Programme ◽  
Rural And Urban

According to Romania’s National Rural Development Programme, the socio-economic situation of the rural environment has a large number of weaknesses – among which low access to financial resources for small entrepreneurs and new business initiatives in rural areas and poorly developed entrepreneurial culture, characterized by a lack of basic managerial knowledge – but also a large number of opportunities – among which access of the rural population to lifelong learning and entrepreneurial skills development programmes and entrepreneurs’ access to financial instruments. The population in rural areas depends mainly on agricultural activities which give them subsistence living conditions. The gap between rural and urban areas is due to low income levels and employment rates, hence the need to obtain additional income for the population employed in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming, especially in the context of the depopulation trend. At the same time, the need to stimulate entrepreneurship in rural areas is high and is at a resonance with the need to increase the potential of rural communities from the perspective of landscape, culture, traditional activities and local resources. A solution could be to turn vegetal and / or animal farms into social farms – farms on which people with disabilities (but also adolescents and young people with anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and alexithymia issues) might find a “foster” family, bed and meals in a natural, healthy environment, and share the farm’s activities with the farmer and the farmer’s family: “committing to a regular day / days and times for a mutually agreed period involves complying with any required health and safety practices (including use of protective clothing and equipment), engaging socially with the farm family members and other people working on and around the farm, and taking on tasks which would include working on the land, taking care of animals, or helping out with maintenance and other physical work”

Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Countries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Visser
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Rural Environments

Many social scientists over the last decades have focused on the question of the impacts of poverty on people. Studies in this field primarily examine the effects of social, cultural, and economic resources and structural factors on the development, social outcomes, and well-being of an individual. In the last decades, scholarly interest has increasingly focused on poverty among children and adolescents (hereafter “young people”). Young people are seen as a nation’s future, which forms a reason for societal concern with their well-being and developmental outcomes. In addition, scholars increasingly acknowledge that poverty is multidimensional and heterogenous: the effects of poverty differ according to personal characteristics such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, or disability, but they are also exemplified by the disadvantaged environments in which young people find themselves, such as dysfunctional families, deprived neighborhoods, and low-quality schools. This article gives an overview of the most important works in the field of the effects of poverty and disadvantaged environments on young people (0–18 years of age). As the nature of poverty differs significantly between affluent countries and low-income developing countries, this review is focused on studies in the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Given the fact that disadvantage, and the different effects thereof on young people, can be approached from the perspectives offered by different social sciences, publications from geography, sociology, social work, anthropology, economics, and (environmental) psychology are included in this review. This article departs from the idea of ecological models, assuming that poverty impacts children within their various contexts such as the home, school, and neighborhood. After presenting general works on poverty among young people, attention is given to the impacts of disadvantages in home, neighborhood, and school environments. Most studies that are discussed in this review deal with disadvantage in urban areas, reflecting the focus of the overall literature in affluent countries. However, poverty and disadvantage also differ between urban and rural environments. Therefore, the article ends with an overview of literature on poverty among young people in rural areas.

scholarly journals Food Security and Climate Change: Differences in Impacts and Adaptation Strategies for Rural Communities in the Global South and North

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhashni Raj ◽  
Sam Roodbar ◽  
Catherine Brinkley ◽  
David Walter Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global North

This research highlights the mismatch between food security and climate adaptation literature and practice in the Global North and South by focusing on nested case studies in rural India and the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but also has one of the largest wealth gaps. Comparatively, India has one of the largest populations of food insecure people. To demonstrate how adaptive food security approaches to climate change will differ, we first review the unique climate, agricultural, demographic, and socio-economic features; and then compare challenges and solutions to food security posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While both countries rely on rural, low-income farmworkers to produce food, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how agricultural and food security policies differ in their influence on both food insecurity and global hunger alike. Emphasis on agricultural production in developing regions where a majority of individuals living in rural areas are smallholder subsistence farmers will benefit the majority of the population in terms of both poverty alleviation and food production. In the Global North, an emphasis on food access and availability is necessary because rural food insecure populations are often disconnected from food production.

scholarly journals Procedural Telementoring in Rural, Underdeveloped, and Austere Settings: Origins, Present Challenges, and Future Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan P. Wachs ◽  
Andrew W. Kirkpatrick ◽  
Samuel A. Tisherman
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rural Practice ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Medical Assistance ◽  
Residency Programs ◽  
Rural Settings

Telemedicine is perhaps the most rapidly growing area in health care. Approximately 15 million Americans receive medical assistance remotely every year. Yet rural communities face significant challenges in securing subspecialist care. In the United States, 25% of the population resides in rural areas, where less than 15% of physicians work. Current surgery residency programs do not adequately prepare surgeons for rural practice. Telementoring, wherein a remote expert guides a less experienced caregiver, has been proposed to address this challenge. Nonetheless, existing mentoring technologies are not widely available to rural communities, due to a lack of infrastructure and mentor availability. For this reason, some clinicians prefer simpler and more reliable technologies. This article presents past and current telementoring systems, with a focus on rural settings, and proposes a set of requirements for such systems. We conclude with a perspective on the future telementoring systems and the integration of artificial intelligence within those systems. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, Volume 23 is June 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Rural SNAP Participants and Food Insecurity: How Can Communities Leverage Resources to Meet the Growing Food Insecurity Status of Rural and Low-Income Residents?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (17) ◽  
pp. 6037
Author(s):  
Emily DeWitt ◽  
Rachel Gillespie ◽  
Heather Norman-Burgdolf ◽  
Kathryn M. Cardarelli ◽  
Stacey Slone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Vegetable Consumption ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dietary Intakes ◽  
Annual Household Income ◽  
Health Promoting

The burden of obesity disproportionately influences poor health outcomes in rural communities in the United States. Various social and environmental factors contribute to inadequate food access and availability in rural areas, influencing dietary intakes and food insecurity rates. This study aims to identify patterns related to food insecurity and fruit and vegetable consumption within a SNAP-eligible and low-income, highly obese rural Appalachian community. A prospective cohort was implemented to identify gaps in resources addressing obesity and food insecurity challenges. SAS 9.4 software was used to examine differences in dietary intakes and shopping practices among SNAP participants. Among participants (n = 152), most reported an annual household income less than USD 20,000 (n = 90, 60.4%), 29.1% reported food insecurity, and 39.5% reported receiving SNAP benefits within the last month. The overall mean FV intake was 3.46 daily servings (95% CI: 3.06–3.91) among all participants. SNAP participation was associated with food insecurity (p = 0.007) and those participating in SNAP were two times more likely to report being food insecure (OR = 2.707, 95% CI: 1.317, 5.563), relative to non-participants. These findings further depict the need for intervention, as the burden of food insecurity persists. Tailoring health-promoting initiatives to consider rurality and SNAP participation is vital for sustainable success among these populations.

scholarly journals Place Effects and Chronic Disease Rates in a Rural State: Evidence from a Triangulation of Methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (18) ◽  
pp. 6676
Author(s):  
Mohamed Shabani Kariburyo ◽  
Lauri Andress ◽  
Alan Collins ◽  
Paul Kinder
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Chronic Diseases ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disease Rates ◽  
Cold Spots ◽  
Access To Food

High rates of chronic diseases and increasing nutritional polarization between different income groups in the United States are issues of concern to policymakers and public health officials. Spatial differences in access to food are mainly blamed as the cause for these nutritional inequalities. This study first detected hot and cold spots of food providers in West Virginia and then used those places in a quasi-experimental method (entropy balancing) to study the effects of those places on diabetes and obesity rates. We found that although hot spots have lower rates of chronic diseases than non-hot spots and cold spots have higher rates of chronic diseases than non-cold spots—the situation is complicated. With the findings of income induced chronic disease rates in urban areas, where most hot spots are located, there is evidence of another case for "food swamps." However, in cold spots which are located mainly in rural areas, higher rates of chronic diseases are attributed to a combination of access to food providers along with lacking the means (i.e., income for low-income households) to form healthier habits.

Screening mammography in southeastern Kentucky: Is it a predictor of ongoing health disparities?

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (27_suppl) ◽  
pp. 28-28
Author(s):  
Raymond Elsoueidi ◽  
Elias Hanna ◽  
Mark Dignan
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Screening Mammography ◽  
The State ◽  
Behavioral Risk ◽  
Dramatic Improvement ◽  
Southeastern Part

28 Background: Studies have shown that women living in rural areas have a significantly lower rate of screening mammography than women living in urban areas. Despite the dramatic improvement in the use of screening mammography in the United States, disparities are still present. Southeastern Kentucky is a rural area with a low income population and barriers such as distance and lack of public transportation to access health care. We reviewed the use of screening mammography in this population. Methods: Data for women age 50 and older who did not have a screening mammography within the past 2 years were obtained from the behavioral risk factor surveillance system for the years 2000 through 2008. Results: The rates of screening mammography in the state of Kentucky for women age 50 and older ranged from 77% in 2000 to77.6% in 2008. The rates for urban areas in Kentucky ranged from 79.5% in 2000 to 79.4% in 2008 and those for the rural southeastern part of the state ranged from 62.6 % in 2000 to 63.7 in 2008. On average, the rates of screening mammography in southeastern Kentucky were 23% lower than state rates from 2000-2008, a difference that is statistically significant (p<.05). Additionally, from 2000 to 2008 there was no statistically significant improvement in the rates of screening mammography in southeastern Kentucky. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that the rates of participation in screening mammography are substantially lower in rural southeastern Kentucky. Continued efforts are needed to improve understanding the factors that contribute to these low rates and to help develop interventions to overcome the obstacles for obtaining screening mammography in rural populations.

scholarly journals Presentation, Management, and Outcomes across the Rural-Urban Continuum for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kali Zhou ◽  
Trevor A Pickering ◽  
Christina S Gainey ◽  
Myles Cockburn ◽  
Mariana C Stern ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Tumor Stage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Incidence And Mortality ◽  
Receive Treatment

Abstract Background Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of few cancers with rising incidence and mortality in the United States. Little is known about disease presentation and outcomes across the rural-urban continuum. Methods Using the population-based SEER registry, we identified adults with incident hepatocellular carcinoma between 2000–2016. Urban, suburban and rural residence at time of cancer diagnosis were categorized by the Census Bureau’s percent of the population living in non-urban areas. We examined association between place of residence and overall survival. Secondary outcomes were late tumor stage and receipt of therapy. Results Of 83,368 cases, 75.8%, 20.4%, and 3.8% lived in urban, suburban, and rural communities, respectively. Median survival was 7 months (IQR 2–24). All stage and stage-specific survival differed by place of residence, except for distant stage. In adjusted models, rural and suburban residents had a respective 1.09-fold (95% CI = 1.04–1.14, p &lt; .001) and 1.08-fold (95% CI = 1.05–1.10, p &lt; .001) increased hazard of overall mortality as compared to urban residents. Furthermore, rural and suburban residents had 18% (OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.10–1.27, p &lt; .001) and 5% (OR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.02–1.09, p = .003) higher odds of diagnosis at late stage and were 12% (OR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.80–0.94, p &lt; .001) and 8% (OR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.88–0.95, p &lt; .001) less likely to receive treatment, respectively, compared to urban residents. Conclusions Residence in a suburban and rural community at time of diagnosis was independently associated with worse indicators across the cancer continuum for liver cancer. Further research is needed to elucidate the primary drivers of these rural-urban disparities.

scholarly journals Tackling Rural Health, Energy, … and Technological Issues All at Once: A Call for a Global Interdisciplinary Platform for Strengthening Rural Setting Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Challenges ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Farshad Amiraslani
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Health ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
Research Studies

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has revealed flaws in rural settings where most people live without the necessary tools, income, and knowledge to tackle such unprecedented global challenges. Here, I argue that despite the research studies conducted on rural areas, these have not solved rising rural issues, notably poverty and illiteracy. I propound a global institute to be formed by governments that provides a platform for empowering rural communities through better training, skills, and competencies. Such global endeavour will ensure the remaining rural communities withstand future pandemics if they occur.

The Rural-Urban Continuum of Polarization: Understanding the Geography of the 2018 Midterms

The Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Johnson ◽  
Dante J. Scala
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rural America ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
Urban America ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
The Continuum

Abstract This study of the 2018 congressional midterms demonstrates how voting patterns and political attitudes vary across a spectrum of urban and rural areas in the United States. Rural America is no more a monolith than is urban America. The rural-urban gradient is better represented by a continuum than a dichotomy. This is evident in the voting results in 2018, just as it was in 2016. We found that the political tipping point lies beyond major metropolitan areas, in the suburban counties of smaller metropolitan areas. Democrats enjoyed even greater success in densely populated urban areas in 2018 than in 2016. Residents of these urban areas display distinctive and consistent social and political attitudes across a range of scales. At the other end of the continuum in remote rural areas, Republican candidates continued to command voter support despite the challenging national political environment. Voters in these rural regions expressed social and political attitudes diametrically opposed to their counterparts in large urban cores.

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