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Rural Health
Research Gateway

2025 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.

  • Rural and Urban Differences in Suicide in the United States, 2018-2021
    Policy Brief
    ETSU/NORC Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 05/2025
    Suicide remains a significant cause of mortality in the United States. This policy brief examines state-level differences in suicide rates by demographics and geography, with a focus on rural and urban areas from 2018 to 2021. The study employs a cross-sectional, retrospective design using secondary data sources.
  • Impact of Hospital Closure on Rural Communities: A Qualitative Study
    Report
    RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
    Date: 05/2025
    Rising rates of rural hospital closures have prompted concerns about access to care in affected communities. This paper summarizes findings from interviews with state and community leaders who experienced hospital closures between May 2010 and December 2017, detailing their impact on rural communities and how local communities adapted to them.
  • Rural Access to Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs)
    Policy Brief
    Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
    Date: 05/2025
    This study compares rural/urban access to Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers and the services they offer.
  • Federal and State Reimbursement for Youth Behavioral Health Services
    Report
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 04/2025
    Medicaid is an important source of health care coverage for children and youth in rural areas. This policy brief details the state and federal policies that impact access to behavioral health care services for youth in rural areas, including Medicaid reimbursement policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
  • The Rural and Urban Supply of Clinicians With a DEA Waiver to Prescribe Buprenorphine in 2022 Prior to the Elimination of the Waiver Requirement
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 04/2025
    This data brief describes the supply of all clinicians with a DEA waiver to prescribe medication for opioid use disorder from 2017 to 2022. The supply of eligible clinicians grew in both rural and urban counties in five years. More rural counties lacked waivered clinician compared to urban counties.
  • Are HCC Risk Scores a Reliable Health Status Indicator Across Rural and Urban Areas?
    Policy Brief
    ETSU/NORC Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 04/2025
    This brief explores differences in CMS Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) risk scores between rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries, revealing lower scores for rural populations despite higher chronic disease prevalence. The brief highlights HCC score limitations and suggests improvements and alternatives for accurate health representation.
  • Impact of Rural Exposure During General Surgery Residency on Practice in a Rural Community
    Journal Article
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 03/2025
    This retrospective study of 11,407 U.S. general surgery residency graduates between 2011 and 2020 investigated the association between exposure to rural surgery care in residency and practice in a rural location.
  • Medicare Advantage and Rural Hospital Profitability
    Journal Article
    North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
    Date: 01/2025
    Researchers compared the profitability of rural and urban hospitals located in varying rates of Medicare Advantage (MA) penetration. Results will increase our understanding of rural hospitals in areas with lower versus higher rates of MA penetration.
  • A New Model-based Approach for Estimating Rural Hospital Markets
    Journal Article
    North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
    Date: 01/2025
    Researchers developed a new method for defining rural hospital markets that uses publicly available data with models of patient care-seeking behavior. This approach identifies the ZIP codes estimated to provide a majority of patient volume to a particular hospital. Findings can be used to examine key market characteristics of rural hospitals.
  • Opioid Use Among Rural Medicare Beneficiaries
    Policy Brief
    Maine Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 01/2025
    This study used the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) to address the lack of literature on the rural-urban difference in the use and misuse of prescription opioids. Over years 2010-2017, rural community and facility-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries were more likely to receive opioid prescriptions than their urban counterparts.
  • Examining Differences in Rural and Urban Medicare FFS Beneficiaries' Emergency Department Use Before and During Covid
    Policy Brief
    ETSU/NORC Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 01/2025
    The brief examines changes in emergency department (ED) use among rural and urban Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Key findings included a moderate increase in rural ED use, higher mortality and inpatient admissions, and decreased use among dual-eligible beneficiaries.
  • Evaluating Medicare Advantage Benchmark Setting Methodology on Rural Counties
    Policy Brief
    RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
    Date: 01/2025
    This brief explores how the process for setting benchmark payments for Medicare Advantage plans may create different incentives across rural and urban counties.
  • Medicare Advantage Enrollment Update 2024
    Policy Brief
    RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis, Rapid Response to Requests for Rural Data Analysis
    Date: 01/2025
    This policy brief continues RUPRI Center's annual update of Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollment including the changes in enrollment in types of MA plans, and health policy changes that may have had an impact.