Nursing shortage continues to affect rural hospitals

Hospitals in rural communities are struggling due to widespread nursing shortages. Staffing issues have resulted in compromised healthcare services in many rural communities …

Pandemic continues to affect food security rates throughout the nation’s Indigenous communities

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased food insecurity within Indigenous communities nationwide according to a recent report …

Why college graduates are moving back to their rural communities

In a recently published report titled, “Rural College Graduates: Who Comes Home?” author Stephanie Sowl, a Ph.D. candidate at Iowa State University, and her co-authors, Rachel Smith and Michael Brown, explored the patterns and reasoning behind why college graduates are returning to their rural hometowns.

Defining “rural” and why it matters

Defining “rural” areas can be difficult considering how many existing definitions there currently are. As of now, the U.S. Census Bureau defines “rural” to mean “an area that is not urban.”

Rural communities turn into drugstore deserts with loss of independent pharmacies

Drugstore deserts are becoming increasingly more common in American rural communities. In a recent University of Iowa Rural Policy Research Institute study, 1,231 of the nation’s 7,624 independent rural pharmacies permanently closed between 2003 and 2018, leaving hundreds of communities struggling to fill their prescriptions.