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.

Universal access to health services and universal health coverage are needed to achieve good health for all, yet rural communities face a variety of access barriers. As part of an effort to 'rural proof' health systems, it is therefore imperative to identify and act on the factors limiting access to health services by rural and Indigenous communities. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the wide range of access barriers faced by rural and remote communities and discusses the potential for barrier assessments to contribute evidence for rural proofing of national health policies, strategies, plans and programs.

This research reports on patient and community physician satisfaction with a teleneurology program which provided consultations to 14,241 patients at 12 community-based hospitals between 2014 and 2021. Results show high levels of satisfaction with using tablet technology for teleneurology consultation.

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The general principles of health care quality are well articulated internationally, but less has been written about applying these principles to rural contexts. Research exploring patient and provider views of health care quality in rural communities is limited.  This study investigated what was important in health care quality, particularly for hospital-level care, for rural New Zealand communities.

Access to ultrasound imaging services is limited in rural areas and point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has the potential to reduce this gap. This exploratory study assessed how POCUS is utilised by doctors in contemporary Australian rural general practice. Doctors reported limited confidence for certain scans and used POCUS predominantly for obstetric indications. Attention to the barriers to POCUS utilisation is needed to realise the potential benefits for the health of rural communities.

People do not receive regular dental care for several reasons. This may result in tooth loss and other health effects. Dental care may be a bigger challenge in rural settings, where there are several barriers to care. This study used Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data and examined dental visits and tooth loss for US Indigenous American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults in rural vs. urban settings. In adjusted analyses, AI/AN adults in rural vs. urban settings had a similar frequency of dental visits in 2020 with 33% higher odds of having missing teeth. The author recommends interventions to maintain teeth in AI/AN adults in rural settings.

Despite policies aimed at universal health coverage by ensuring availability and accessibility of general practitioners (GPs), medically underserved areas (or ‘medical deserts’) are still present in Europe. This systematic review summarizes and compares literature on interventions and their potential effectiveness in GP recruitment and retention in these underserved areas.

Every year, an estimated 15 million infants are born preterm worldwide. Women residing in rural and remote areas of Australia experience increased rates of adverse perinatal outcomes and are at almost twice the risk of having a preterm infant than women residing in major cities. Mortality and morbidity rates are higher for preterm infants born in non-tertiary centres, thus women are generally transferred to metropolitan tertiary centres to give birth. This study investigates the experiences of women from rural areas who have had a preterm infant admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit.

Australians living in regional and remote communities face several barriers when accessing  health care. Voluntary assisted dying (VAD), presents a new challenge for these communities. Western Australia is the second Australian state to implement VAD laws and, to date, is the jurisdiction with the greatest need to address such inequities due to its vast geography. This article identifies and explores initiatives introduced during the law-making and implementation stages of the law reform to address regional and remote access inequities.

This conference declaration, the Limerick Declaration on Rural Health Care, an outcome of the 19th World Rural Health Conference in Limerick, Ireland in 2022, is designed to inform rural communities, academics and policymakers how to achieve the goal of delivering high quality health care in rural and remote areas most effectively, with a particular focus on the Irish healthcare system. Congruent with current evidence and best international practice, the participants of the conference endorsed a series of recommendations for the creation of high quality, sustainable and cost-effective healthcare delivery for rural communities in Ireland and globally.

Bootheel Counties (Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, and Pemiscot) experience some of the worst health outcomes in Missouri. In this study, a collaborative team of academics, practice partners and community health workers were engaged in a participatory strategy development process to identify social and organizational determinants of accessing health care in the Bootheel counties and to collectively prioritize identified issues and develop strategies for change. Participants identified several individual, social, community, and organization-level barriers to accessing health care, including cost, lack of transportation, lack of information about services, lack of coordinated care, lack of trust, and racism and classism in local healthcare systems.

Chagas disease (CD), a devastating infectious disease caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, affects 6 to 7 million people worldwide, with 30,000 new cases reported each year. CD is endemic to 21 Latin American countries, but has spread more widely in recent decades. In Latin America, CD is spread most often via the feces of the 'kissing bug', which can infest housing, particularly in poorer rural areas. Prevention programs therefore often focus on the interruption of household transmission. This study evaluates current knowledge of CD among youth in the three communities of southern Ecuador.

Although sex work is not criminalized in Brazil, female sex workers experience prejudice and discrimination. In rural areas, which tend to be poorer regions, female sex workers experience inequities in gender, race, class and, above all, bear marks of struggle and survival. This study reports on the meanings that women, in the experience of paid sexual work living in rural areas, attribute to the quality of life, according to Sartre's phenomenological perspective.