BACKGROUND Despite economic growth and improved health outcomes over the past few decades, China still experiences striking urban-rural health inequalities. Urban and rural residents distinguished by the hukou system may experience profound disparities because of institutional effect. The aim of this study is to estimate trends in urban-rural disparities in self-care, outpatient care, and inpat...

background : despite an increased need, residents of rural communities have decreased access to healthcare and often present unique healthcare challenges associated with their rurality. ensuring medical students receive adequate exposure to these issues is complicated by the urban location of most medical schools. health fairs (fairs) conducted in rural communities can provide students exposure...

Little is known about the views of rural family physicians (FPs) regarding collaborative care models for patients with dementia. The study aims were to explore FPs' views regarding this issue, their role in providing dementia care, and the implications of providing dementia care in a rural setting. This study employed an exploratory qualitative design with a sample of 15 FPs. All rural FPs indi...

BACKGROUND South Africa is currently undergoing major health system restructuring in an attempt to improve health outcomes and reduce inequities in access. Such inequities exist between private and public health care and within the public health system itself. Experience shows that rural health care can be disadvantaged in policy formulation despite good intentions. The objective of this study ...

PURPOSE This article describes a strategy for rural providers, communities, and policy makers to support or establish accountable care organizations (ACOs). METHODS ACOs represent a new health care delivery and provider payment system designed to improve clinical quality and control costs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes contracts with ACOs a permanent option under ...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this paper is to propose a protocol for researching the impact of rural youth health service strategies on health care access. There has been no published comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of youth health strategies in rural areas, and there is no clearly articulated model of how such assessments might be conducted. The protocol described here aims to gathe...

Rural populations experience higher rates of illness, less access to health care resources, and lower rates of health insurance coverage than do urban populations. A need exists to identify and address the health care needs of rural communities and other isolated populations and to contextualize the findings in the larger rural health environment. Critical ethnography combined with community-ba...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to explore possible differences in health care seeking behaviour among a rural and urban African population. DESIGN A cross sectional design was followed using the infrastructure of the PURE-SA study. Four rural and urban Setswana communities which represented different strata of urbanisation in the North West Province, South Africa, were selected. Structur...