PURPOSE Addressing substance abuse in rural America requires extending our understanding beyond urban-rural comparisons to how substance abuse varies across rural communities of different sizes. We address this gap by examining substance abuse prevalence across 4 geographic levels, focusing on youth (age 12-17 years) and young adults (age 18-25 years). METHODS The analysis is based on 3 years...

Fast and unplanned city growth, has effects such as isolation of village societies, threatening urbancores and centers and small and weak societies, destruction of open spaces and open and natural regions. Smart growthoffers a sustainable way for urban developing with appropriate use of available sources, increase of urban services,developing neighborhoods with different uses, making public tra...

Focusing on urban–rural development issues, this paper analyzes the necessity of coordinated development between the narrowing gap and integral development. An overall urban–rural development dynamic model aimed at two major objectives is pointed out. A principal component analysis (PCA)—Grey Entropy measurement model is proposed to evaluate urban–rural coordination from economic development, s...

In this paper we examine the relative importance of rural versus urban areas in terms of monetary poverty and seven other related living standards indicators. We present the levels of urban-rural differences for several African countries for which we have data and find that living standards in rural areas lag far behind those in urban areas. Then we examine the relative and absolute rates of ch...

BACKGROUND China has experienced a rapid increase in hypertension over the past decade, especially in rural. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine the dynamic trends in urban-rural disparities in hypertension prevalence, detection, and medication use among Chinese adults from 1993 to 2011. METHODS Data were extracted from the seven latest waves of the China Health and Nutrition Su...

Urbanization is an important demographic phenomenon in sub-Saharan Africa, and rural-urban migration remains a major contributor to urban growth. In a context of sustained economic recession, these demographic processes have been associated with a rise in urban poverty and ill health. Developments in health service provision need to reflect new needs arising from demographic and disease ecology...

The past decades have witnessed a number of informal land developments on the urban fringe in China although many strict state regulations have been made to control this. The dual urban rural land system is widely believed to be one major determinant of informal developments in the existing literature. However, the important role of local villages and townships are often neglected. This paper a...

OBJECTIVE The paper examines whether out-of-pocket health care expenditure also has regional discrepancies, comparing to the equity between urban and rural areas, and across households. METHOD Sampled data were derived from Urban Household Survey and Rural Household Survey data for 2011/2012 for Anhui Province, and 11049 households were included in this study. The study compared differences i...

PURPOSE African Americans are at increased risk for diabetes mellitus and hypertension, and rural residents have historically had decreased access to care. It is unclear whether living in a rural area and being African American confers added risks for diagnosis and control of diabetes and hypertension. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes and hypertensio...