Rural and Remote Health is an open-access international academic journal serving rural and remote communities and publishing articles by rural health practitioners, educators, researchers and policy makers.

This study contributes to understanding of the challenges experienced by rural healthcare providers in diagnosing and managing traumatic brain injury in their patients. Results from this qualitative study, involving 18 healthcare providers, point to several challenges and barriers to care as well as opportunities to overcome these challenges.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are effective in sensitising people to diabetes mellitus (DM) and diabetic retinopathy (DR). In Fiji, CHWs attended a one-day DR awareness training course to provide communities with adequate basic knowledge about DM and DR to improve awareness and enhance referrals for DR screening and treatment. This study reports on the impact of this training on CHW knowledge of DR and referral practices in Fiji.

Vaccination is considered an key element in the prevention of COVID-19, but rural Americans are less likely to be vaccinated compared to their urban counterparts. This explorative qualitative study considers perceptions related to COVID-19 vaccination among rural Oklahomans, with the goal of informing strategies to address vaccine hesitancy. Perceived benefits of vaccination, as well as barriers to vaccination are described.

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a major public health issue in the USA, particularly in rural communities. This study describes how a research team in Virginia used the Stakeholder Engagement in Question Development and Prioritization Method (SEED) to engage the community in creating a roadmap to address OUD in their community. Focus groups provided information that community stakeholders used to develop strategies they felt were needed in their community, and which they felt empowered to implement.

Recruiting and retaining rural primary healthcare professionals is a global healthcare problem. In this qualitative study, Canadian medical educators and institutional leaders were asked about medical education approaches that helped prepare students for rural practice. The authors found that preparing students for rural careers is influenced by many factors, including interpersonal relationships, medical education curriculum, and the personal characteristics of students. The key informants suggest that future research could use the complex systems theory to improve understanding of how to support medical learners in their preparation for rural careers.

Compulsory rural service is one method of addressing limitations in access to health care in marginalized areas of low- and middle-income countries, including Guatemala. This study explores Guatemalan medical students’ experiences of compulsory rural service and the impact of rural service on their professional development.

Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are a major cause of adolescent death and babies who are born to adolescent mothers are 50% more likely to die than babies with adult mothers. The adolescent birth rate in Indonesia is high. This study identifies the determinants of adolescent birth in Indonesia.

There are approximately 90 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled art centres located across Australia, the majority in geographically remote locations. This national survey of art centres explores how they are supporting older people, including people living with dementia, if and how they are collaborating with aged care services and what challenges and opportunities they identify in these arrangements.