Rural Health Research Recaps

The Rural Health Research Centers are committed to providing timely, quality national research on the most pressing rural health issues, often exploring the same topics from various perspectives. Gateway has developed Rural Health Research Recaps to identify the key findings from all of the research centers on specific rural health topics.

• Post-Acute Care in Rural Areas: The Role of Swing Beds and Nursing Homes
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 03/2024
  Patients who have received acute care services, but are not ready to safely return home, may transition to post-acute care (PAC). The PAC phase acts as a bridge between the hospital and the next steps to recovery. This Recap examines the roles that swing beds and nursing homes have in PAC.
• Quality Star Ratings: Hospitals, Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Home Health Agencies
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 03/2024
  In 2021, 41.6% of rural hospitals lacked an overall quality star rating compared to only 12.0% of urban hospitals. The absence of a star rating may be misinterpreted by patients as an indicator of low-quality care. This Recap examines star ratings among hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies.

• Rural Behavioral Health Workforce
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 08/2023
  As of March 31, 2023, there were 4,040 Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas in rural areas, with 2,141 practitioners needed to remove the designations. This recap examines the behavioral health workforce supply, including the distribution of counselors, psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

• Opioid Use Disorder and Treatment: Rural-Urban Comparisons
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 02/2022
  This Recap examines rural-urban comparisons related to the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD), the impact of OUD on hospitals and emergency departments, and prescribing buprenorphine for OUD treatment.

• State of Rural Women's Healthcare Utilization and Health Indicators
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 04/2019
  Rural women face barriers to accessing preventive health screenings, mental health services, and maternal healthcare. This Recap provides a summary of the research on rural women's utilization of healthcare services, maternal substance use, and other health indicators.
• Quality of Care in Rural Hospitals
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 01/2019
  This Rural Health Research Recap looks at hospital quality-of-care measures and the difficulties of developing quality measures, especially for rural hospitals with low patient volumes.

• Opioid Use and Treatment Availability
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 01/2018
  This resource examines opioid use in rural communities, as well as the perceived need for and utilization of treatment for opioid use disorder, based on a summary of the Rural Health Research Centers' most recent research.

• Rural Hospital Closures
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 12/2017
  From January 2005 through early November 2017, 124 rural hospitals closed in the U.S. This Recap, one of two, provides a summary of the Rural Health Research Centers' most recent research on hospital closures.
• Rural Behavioral Health
  Rural Health Research Gateway
  Date: 11/2017
  Rural behavioral health issues are compounded by a lack of access to care, workforce shortages, reimbursement issues, and high rates of uninsured or under-insurance. This resource provides a summary of the Rural Health Research Centers' most recent research on behavioral health.