Publications & Maps
The Rural Monitor
The Rural Monitor is the quarterly newsletter of the Rural Assistance Center. Each issue provides articles on a variety of rural health and human services issues.
Listservs
The RAC Listservs provide regular updates on
rural news, funding opportunities, publications and events. The RAC
Health listserv is sent out twice a month with links to resources
on rural health issues. The Human Services listserv comes out monthly
with links to resources focused on rural human services. The Rural
Monitor listserv comes out quarterly with the latest issue of the
Rural Monitor newsletter.
Maps
The RAC Maps section provides
national maps on a variety of rural health and human services topics. Maps can be customized to focus on a specified state or county and to show additional labels, boundaries and data, for use in grant applications, reports and other publications.
Information Guides
RAC's Information Guides bring together relevant information on rural issues and topics, pulled from the News, Funding and Events sections of the RAC web site, as well as links to useful publications, organizations and web sites. Some guides include in-depth information, such as frequently asked questions and contacts for more assistance.
Federal Register News
RAC's Federal Register News provides
summaries of rural-relevant Federal
Register notices from the past 120 days, with links to the Federal
Register for the complete notice.
Publications
RAC collects and facilitates access to documents, journals and other publications from many sources, including these:
Key publications identified in the past 30 days:
Access to Social Services in Rural America: The Geography of the Safety Net in the Rural West
Author(s): Scott W. Allard, Jessica Cigna
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Rural Policy Research Center
Investigates social services in high poverty rural regions in the American West in California, Oregon, and New Mexico to see what types of assistance are readily available to the rural poor.
Date: 06 / 2008
Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities: Workshop Summary
Sponsoring organization: Institute of Medicine
Examines the importance of disparities in differences in life expectancy within the United States, the reasons for those differences, and the implications of this information for programs and policy makers.
Date: 2008
Challenges for Rural Emergency Medical Services: Medical Oversight (Findings Brief)
Author(s): Victoria Freeman, Rebecca Slifkin, Daniel Patterson
Sponsoring organization: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center (Cecil G. Sheps Center)
Examines the challenges faced by local rural EMS agencies in obtaining a medical director and ensuring medical oversight for EMS personnel.
Date: 05 / 2008
Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategies for Rural Public Health Agencies Seeking Accreditation
Author(s): Michael Meit, Karen Harris, Jessica Bushar, Bhumika Piya, Maria Molfino
Sponsoring organization: NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis
Enhances understanding of how public health infrastructure may dictate rural health departments’ approaches to seeking accreditation.
Date: 06 / 2008
Distribution of Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities Across the Rural – Urban Continuum (Research & Policy Brief)
Author(s): Jennifer Lenardson, John A. Gale
Sponsoring organization: Maine Rural Health Research Center
Highlights findings from a recent study examining the distribution of substance abuse treatment facilities in rural and urban counties and identifying the type and intensity of services provided.
Date: 02 / 2008
Far From the City: Community Orientation and Responsiveness of Rural Hospitals
Sponsoring organization: Upper Midwest Rural Health Research Center
Reports the findings of a national study focused on variation in hospital community orientation and responsiveness across differing rural contexts.
Date: 05 / 2008
Financing Rural Public Health Activities in Prevention and Health Promotion (Final Report)
Author(s): Michael Meit, Benjamin N. Hamlin, Bhumika Piya, Lorraine Ettaro
Sponsoring organization: NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis
Discusses whether the flow of federal resources, from federal agencies, through states, and to communities, is influenced by state and local level public health infrastructure.
Date: 06 / 2008
Issues in Staffing Emergency Medical Services: A National Survey of Local Rural and Urban EMS Directors
Author(s): Victoria Freeman
Sponsoring organization: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center (Cecil G. Sheps Center)
Explores rural-urban differences in medical oversight and the recruitment and retention of
emergency medical technicians and paramedics as reported by a survey of 1,425 local EMS directors.
Date: 05 / 2008
Rural Public Health Agency Accreditation (Final Report)
Author(s): Michael Meit, Karen Harris, Jessica Bushar, Bhumika Piya, Maria Molfino
Sponsoring organization: NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis
Studies the barriers and opportunities to public health agency accreditation among state and local health departments serving rural jurisdictions.
Date: 06 / 2008
Rural Public Health Financing: The Relationship Between Infrastructure and Local Program Funding
Author(s): Michael Meit, Lorraine Ettaro, Benjamin Hamlin, Bhumika Piya
Sponsoring organization: NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis
Describes how federal funds for disease prevention and health promotion activities are distributed to
local health departments (LHDs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the rural local level.
Date: 06 / 2008
Rural-Urban Differences in Characteristics of Local EMS Agencies (Findings Brief)
Author(s): Victoria Freeman, Rebecca Slifkin, Daniel Patterson
Sponsoring organization: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center (Cecil G. Sheps Center)
Describes the characteristics of local rural EMS agencies and important ways that they differ from the characteristics of agencies located in urban areas.
Date: 05 / 2008
Document Search
The RAC Document Search provides access to 4717 documents, including rural health research center reports, rural health association newsletters, newsletters from state offices of rural health, and a variety of human services publications. New documents are added daily.
