Research Publications

Browse the full list of research publications from the Rural Health Research Centers.

Products – Freely accessible products include policy briefs, fact sheets, full reports, chartbooks, and interactive data websites.

Journal Articles – Articles in peer-reviewed journals may require a subscription or affiliation with a subscribing library. For these publications, Gateway lists the article citation, a brief summary, a link to additional information and access to the full-text of the article, if available.

Browse Research Products:

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Five Most Recent Publications

• Geographic and Sociodemographic Patterns in Prevalence of Diagnosed Diabetes, U.S., 2021–2024
  Journal Article
  University of South Carolina Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 04/2026
  A comparison of National 2021-2024 data of diagnosed diabetes among rural and urban adults across multiple socioeconomic groups confirms the need for public health strategies tailored to both rural and urban communities, and within rural communities, across sociodemographic groups.
• Trends Among Medicare Special Needs Plan Enrollment in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas
  Policy Brief
  RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis, Rapid Response to Requests for Rural Data Analysis
  Date: 04/2026
  This brief examines recent trends in Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plan enrollment by type and geographic variation across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.
• Identification and Characteristics of Under-Resourced and High-Need Rural Counties
  Policy Brief
  University of South Carolina Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 04/2026
  This brief provides a metric describing how publicly available county-level data on health care workforce, chronic disease prevalence, and the socioeconomic environment of rural communities can assist policymakers in identifying the highest need counties for targeted policy initiatives and public health intervention.
• Ambulance Deserts and Health Care Deserts
  Maine Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 04/2026
  These story maps created within ArcGIS illustrate the intersection of ambulance deserts and health care deserts across 41 states.
• Reported Receipt of Mental Health Services by Adolescents Aged 12 to 17 in the Rural and Urban U.S., 2021
  WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 04/2026
  This study characterizes the mental health services received by adolescents in rural and urban counties across the United States (U.S.) in 2021.

Archived Publications

• Publication Archive
  Rural health research publications not available elsewhere online.