Leveraging Rural Strengths to Overcome Population Health Challenges

Research is foundational to identifying challenges faced by rural communities: to address a challenge, we need to understand that challenge. Understanding how inequities vary by geography and the factors that underlie those inequities allows practitioners and policymakers to make informed decisions and design interventions that can make our rural communities healthier places to live, work, and play. We should take pride in the important work that we do to achieve health equity across populations. At the same time, we need to be aware that our work creates a narrative about our rural communities. The view of rural America most often portrayed in the media is of a place of poverty, addiction, disability, and overall dystopia. Sadly, it is often our good work, designed to focus attention on rural inequities, that drives these stories. To the extent that this narrative becomes the prevailing view of rural America, we may be doing unintended harm to the economic vitality and overall vibrancy of our communities.What gets lost in these narratives is what we believe to be the predominant rural story- one of pride, independence, and creativity, where the work ethic remains strong and the vast majority of people strives to make their communities better places. In rural communities, people use unique assets such as social cohesion and connectedness to solve problems together. The narrative of rural communities is, in fact, one of innovation, where a lack of resources has stimulated creativity by bringing people together across sectors to solve problems.