Rural Health

Rural health is an area of medicine that has garnered more attention in recent years. As research has unearthed a divide between the health of urban and rural residents, researchers and clinicians continue looking for answers and solutions to bridge the gap. This guide supports those efforts by putting relevant rural health statistics, tools, and resources at your fingertips in an easy-to-navigate format. 

Many databases index rural health literature and journals. While not all the databases listed focus only on rural health, they all index journals and materials relevant to that topic

Still looking for databases? Click below for a comprehensive list!

Sometimes it can be difficult to know how to search a database for rural populations. Below is a list of rural terms to support your search efforts. Please keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list, only a jumping-off point to help you search for literature. This list is also not formatted with any database syntax. For a more comprehensive discussion on database searching, please view the Advanced Search Strategies LibGuide here. 

• Rural health
• Rural community
• Rural population
• Rural residence 
• Rural health workforce
• Rural hospital
• Rural practice 
• Medically underserved area
• Medically underserved community
• Regional
• Non-urban
• Nonurban
• Micropolitan 
• Remote
• Health Professions Shortage Area (HPSA)

Search hedges can be useful in helping a researcher find literature about a certain topic. Here is an example of a search hedge for rural populations in primary and secondary care settings. This hedge is specific to PubMed (meaning it has all the correct database syntax and field tags) and was designed by folks at Finders University in Adelaide, Australia. Feel free to copy and paste this into the PubMed search box and review the results. You can further refine this hedge by adding your own search terms to it or by using the filtering buttons in PubMed

((Rural health[mh] OR Rural health services[mh] OR Rural population[mh]) AND (Primary health care[tw] OR General practi*[tw] OR primary care[tw] OR Family practice[mh:noexp] OR Family physicians[mh:noexp] OR Community health services[mh:noexp] OR Community health nursing[mh:noexp] OR Community health workers[mh:noexp] OR Community mental health services[mh:noexp] OR Community pharmacy services[mh:noexp] OR Home care services[mh:noexp] OR preventive health services[mh:noexp]) AND Medline[sb]) OR ((Rural health[tiab] OR (Rural[tiab] AND remote[tiab])) AND (Primary health*[tiab] OR general practi*[tiab] OR primary care[tiab] OR family practice[tiab] OR Family medicine[tiab] OR family physician*[tiab] OR Community health*[tiab] OR Community nurs*[tiab] OR Health visit*[tiab] OR Community mental health*[tiab] OR Community pharmac*[tiab] OR Home care[tiab] OR home based[tiab] OR home health*[tiab] OR Health promotion[tiab] OR Preventive care[tiab] OR Preventive health*[tiab] OR Preventive service*[tiab] OR prevention program*[tiab]) NOT Medline[sb]) AND English[la]

Citation: Primary Health Care Research & Information Service. PHC Search Filter. PHCRIS, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. http://www.phcris.org.au/phcsearchfilter (accessed 6 February 2019)