Rural health
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In medicine, rural health is the interdisciplinary study of health and health care delivery in the context of a rural environment or location.
Some of the fields of study comprising rural health include: health, geography, midwifery (remote locations often do not have an OB/GYN), nursing, sociology, economics, telehealth/telemedicine, etc.
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[edit] The problem in defining rural
Rural can be defined in many ways, such as by population density, by geographic location or other. Due to the large number of choices in the definition parties may often disagree with one another on which definition to use.
[edit] Issues in rural health
- Underserviced delivery due to a lack or maldistribution of resources, both in terms of money and labour.
- Lack of specialty services. Medical specialists often do not have enough 'critical mass' of patients to allow them to economically serve a low population area. The hardship on patients can be particularly demanding in some illnesses, say cancer, in which treatment requires regular long distance travel.
