Rural Issues

Edited by Susana Helm

University of Hawai`i at Mānoa

Rural.IG@scra27.org

The Rural IG column highlights rural resources as well as the work of community psychologist, students, and colleagues in their rural environments. Please let me know via email if you would like to be added to the listserve, which I use for announcements (rural grants, rural resources, SCRA news, etc.).

Rural Interest Group Leadership

I am soliciting for a co-chair for the Rural Interest Group.  Please email me to nominate yourself or a colleague.  Once we have a list of candidates, I will create a Survey Monkey link to be emailed via our Rural IG listserve.  We will discuss interest group leadership and annual activities at the biennial at UMass Lowell in June 2015.

Rural Resources

The USDA hosts the Cooperative Extension offices which are, “staffed by one or more experts who provide useful, practical, and research-based information to agricultural producers, small business owners, youth, consumers, and others in rural areas and communities of all sizes (http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/). You also may check the USDA website for investments in your state:  http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=opportunities-factsheets.html.

Area Health Education Centers’ (http://www.nationalahec.org/) mission is, “To enhance access to quality health care, particularly primary and preventive care, by improving the supply and distribution of healthcare professionals through community/academic educational partnerships.” The emphasis is on underserved communities across the nation (http://www.nationalahec.org/AHECDirectory.taf), which often translates to rural communities.

Brief Article: Rural IG Column Seeking Diversity!
Rurality inherently is an issue of diversity.  Many rural practitioners and academics consider the promotion of rural issues to be a diversity initiative.  Within the issue of rurality, there is further diversity in terms of the issues themselves, as well as whose voice is represented.  As chair and editor for the Rural column in TCP, I rely on my contacts (Rural IG listserve, people I meet at conferences or in the community doing rural work) to generate submissions for brief articles.  As can be seen in the table below, the range of authorship and geographic representation of the articles in this column since 2013 is somewhat limited.  Of the nine articles from the past two years during which I have been chair, one brief article included community members as co-authors while the rest were authored by academic affiliated students, faculty, and staff.  Of the nine, six articles were authored or co-authored by students. In both 2013 and 2014 three of the four articles were from Hawai`i, authored by my colleagues, students, and me.  It would be great to learn more about other geographic regions of the United States as well as other countries, especially from the perspective of our colleagues beyond academia.

You must be logged in to the website leave a comment.