Rural areas across Europe face a range of problems, including declining farm incomes, ageing populations, unstable housing markets, high levels of outward migration or long distance commuting, withdrawal of basic services and difficulties faced by those without access to a car or public transport routes. The policy response at EU and national levels has been to shift from "productivist" measure...

BACKGROUND Rural township health centres and urban community health centres play a crucial role in the delivery of primary health care in China. Over the past two-and-a-half decades, these health institutions have not been as well developed as high-level hospitals. The limited availability and low qualifications of human resources in health are among the main challenges facing lower-level healt...

OBJECTIVES China is facing the unprecedented challenge of rapidly increasing rural-to-urban migration. Migrants are in a vulnerable state when they attempt to access to primary care services. This study was designed to explore rural-to-urban migrants' experiences in primary care, comparing their quality of primary care experiences under different types of medical institutions in Guangzhou, Chin...

BACKGROUND Although the need to retain rural registered nurses is pressing, little is known about what influences them to stay in their current employment. The objectives of the study were: to examine public health nurses' (PHNs) job and community satisfaction; to relate job and community satisfaction to their decision to stay in their current employment in rural British Columbia. METHODS A s...

OBJECTIVE Patients' opinion about prevalence of pharmaceutical services available in a community pharmacy among patients living in a rural area of the United Kingdom. The secondary objective was to identify appropriate action(s) to enhance patients' awareness of pharmaceutical services in rural areas. METHODS A self-administered, anonymous questionnaire was distributed to patients visiting a ...

One quarter of all veterans in the United States, 5.2 million people, call rural communities home (see Figure 1). Three million of these veterans are enrolled in the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care. Most rural veterans (82%) have other health insurance and many of them use it to see community providers in addition to their VA health care professionals. In addition, the Ve...

BACKGROUND In South Africa, community service following medical training serves as a mechanism for equitable distribution of health professionals and their professional development. Community service officers are required to contribute a year towards serving in a public health facility while receiving supervision and remuneration. Although the South African community service programme has been ...

© 2004 Society of Rural Physicians of Canada 178 O n March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein attacked his own people, blanketing them with deadly chemicals, cluster bombs and artillery fire. Five thousand Kurdish residents of Halabja, a rural community in northern Iraq, died that day, in the largest recorded chemical warfare incident in history. In November 2003, a 4-person rural medical education team ...