The plan was developed with the help of more than 50 experts within the CDC who reviewed more than 200 rural initiatives, programs and efforts to identify opportunities. Then the agency enlisted the feedback from more than 230 federal and external partners through listening sessions, lunch meetings and town hall events, Dr. Diane Hall, the director of the CDC’s Office of Rural Health (ORH), said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.
The strategic plan is a guide for ORH and the CDC at large, as it moves forward with programs and research into rural health needs. Developed with stakeholders such as the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) and state offices of rural health, the plan seeks to combat issues that are seen at higher levels in rural communities, like obesity, chronic illnesses and substance abuse.
Opened last year, the ORH came as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Disparities between urban and rural access to care shined a spotlight on the need for more attention on rural public health, she said. The strategic plan is the office’s first major publication.
“We really wanted the strategic plan to actually be strategic, but also be actionable,” Hall said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “But more than that, we wanted it to be relevant to the lives of people that live in rural communities.”
Stakeholders, like Alan Morgan, CEO of the NRHA, said the plan is an indication of what is coming in rural health.
“Realistically, this is a blueprint for the future,” Morgan said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “They have highlighted long-standing issues and now they have a direction and a plan to get to where they need to be.”
The plan focuses on four main priorities – engaging with community health partners, strengthening rural public health infrastructure, advancing rural public health science and improving rural public health preparedness and response.
“CDC is committed to advancing rural public health across America by identifying and addressing gaps in the evidence base, data analytic capabilities, and the workforce in rural communities,” the plan said.
Hall said her office will work alongside stakeholders and other subject matter experts to develop a more specific action plan and to determine how best to serve rural areas.
“A lot of times, rural communities haven’t really been served well by government policies or decisions,” she said. “All of that needs to be addressed when we’re talking about health decisions.”
The plan isn’t regionally or state-specific, but it is a step toward an action plan, Hall said.
“Rural health is an issue that garners bipartisan support in Congress,” Hall said. “And Congress has been very clear that they wanted the CDC to create this office. These are the first steps in a very long process to address the rural urban disparities in healthcare.”
Hall said that before the end of the year, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the CDC, will release an updated method for urban-rural classification.
That will make researching rural health issues easier, Katy Backes Kozhimannil, the co-director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. One of the issues facing researchers is determining the rurality of subjects.
Although the strategic plan doesn’t provide direct actionable items, it is a step in the right direction, Kozhimannil said.
“This is a long process,” she said. “Working with local hospitals and rural public health agencies, as well as research centers like ours, is the beginning of the process. I think we’re all looking forward to the next steps and seeing what action items come out of this strategic plan.”
