Volume six, Issue 1

RRH aims to increase the evidence base for rural and remote health. This article provides a great example of how to use evidence to make a difference to health outcomes in rural hospitals.

This interesting paper from Greece reports on the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in three rural villages, based on OGTT measurements. The main findings of the study are in agreement with other recently reported studies from Greece, and highlight further the burden of this disease in this previously healthy European country. It also emphasizes the urgent measures that should be undertaken in ameliorating this public health problem and associated diseases, including obesity, the new threat in many European countries.

Creating regional medical schools is an emerging international strategy to increase the rural medical workforce. Do they work? This paper presents the first encouraging evidence from James Cook University in Australia.

Indigenous Australians in rural communities experience high levels of musculoskeletal conditions, often assessed and managed by Aboriginal health workers. Would the screening survey described here be useful in your own community?

What happens when rural nurses gain further qualifications and take on higher responsibility locally? This Australian study looks at the transitions involved.

As rural adolescents enter the risk-taking stage, especially with the use of alcohol, do parents have strategies to deal with this? This article throws further light on this important rural health issue.

Not all good ideas for rural health delivery succeed in full. If you have a great idea you would like to implement locally, read this article first to see some pitfalls that may undermine your efforts.

Why do urban origin students choose rural practice? This study from Australia provides some useful suggestions.

What can we learn from rural women about their access to health services? This Australian research adds to our understanding.

How can we tailor our approaches to rural and remote health care without good data on what is happenning at the local level? This requires a collaboration between clinicians and researchers, and a nice example, relating to prescribing patterns, is provided in this article from Crete.

Positive student experiences in rural practice will result in positive rural workforce outcomes. But how do we sustain the preceptors?

Youth violence can leap to the headlines and send fear to the hearts. Are rural communities at risk? Do small towns face the same issues? Rural youth speak and you have a chance to listen. This survey of rural youth might be worth a review on the way to better health for your community!

This article addresses the subject of farming suicide and underdetermined death in males in Scotland; it offers crude and standardized data to policy makers, researchers and rural practitioners with an interest on the subject. It highlights the methods used for measuring suicide and underdetermined intent death and it opens an important dialogue on introducing networks and social support as important protective factors for farmers.

Do positive undergraduate rural experiences necessarily translate into immediate recruitment into the rural workforce? This exploratory Queensland study suggests that this transition is multifactorial. It also highlights the urgent need for more powerful multi-cohort or multi-institution studies into the impact of rural medical education initiatives.

With youth suicide at alarming levels in rural communities in Australia, why is it that there is so little research on rural adolescent mental health? This paper reviews the evidence as it is currently, and suggests areas of particular need for further research. Does this ring true for rural areas in other countries? Perhaps others could inform us through sharing the research evidence in their country.

A key role for this journal is helping provide data on how to translate evidence into health care that actually works in rural and remote communities. This brief communication from Thailand adds to this evidence base.

When people become ill they use strategies to solve their problem that include accessing existing therapeutic resources in the community. This study compares the uses of alternative and traditional treatments in a rural area and an urban area of the north of Portugal.

The growing prevalence of diabetes mellitus is well recognised as an important public health problem. It seems to seriously affect remote and rural areas with poor access and little capacity to alleviate the burden on primary care services. This article from Highland in Scotland clearly describes redesign methodology and a mapping process, where health professionals, patients and carers' views were explored and solutions were discussed in solving several key planning issues regarding diabetes mellitus management in these remote areas. This article presents an excellent paradigm on how health planners can work together with primary care services and local people in constructing a governing policy in remote and rural regions and districts.

Improving rural health services is an issue that concerns us all. How these services are financed is a key component of any reform. Read this article to learn some lessons from recent experience in Mongolia.

How often do we find that communication and collaboration are the keys to effective links between rural and urban health services? Here is more evidence in the context of aged care services in rural Australia.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that requires multiple office visits with a multidisciplinary team to learn how to successfully manage and delay the progression of complications. Read about the successful use of "evening cluster clinics" to respond to the health-care and educational needs of Hispanic migrant farmworkers diagnosed with diabetes.

How do you supervise therapy assistants in remote communities? This article describes a West Australian pilot project to do just this.

Want to provide health promotion services to people living accross an area of 600,000 square kilometres? This is the challenge adressed by this project report from Australia.

How can we improve the quality of rural health services in regard to Indigenous mental health? This conference report provides informed views from a range of Australian experts in the field.

Moving health professional education into rural regions is an internationally accepted strategy to assist in improving rural health professional recruitment. This short Personal View provides helpful insights from an important recent innovation in regional Australia.

Have you been frustrated when a promising health intervention fails to be taken up in your rural community? A letter from a group of Australian medical students provides some useful insights to this dilemma.

Are you interested in preceptor development for rural clinicians? This letter describes a new initiative for pharmacy preceptors, especially designed for those working in rural areas.