Rural Health
Research Gateway

Allied health professionals

Research Products & Journal Articles

Browse the full list of research publications on this topic completed by 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.

  • Access to Health Information Technology Training Programs at the Community College Level
    Policy Brief
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 11/2015
    Successful implementation of health information technology (HIT) in rural areas depends on a well-trained HIT workforce, and community colleges are key in producing this workforce. This study examined HIT workforce development programs in community colleges to find their strengths and needs.
  • Access to Rural Home Health Services: Views From the Field
    Report
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 02/2016
    Access to home health care can be challenging for rural Medicare clients. Key informants for this study detailed obstacles, including financial, regulatory, workforce, and geographic issues. Rural communities will likely benefit from payment reforms that reward quality services while providing incentives to use best practices in home health care.
  • Allied Health Job Vacancy Tracking Report
    North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
    Date: 04/2007
    This report quantifies workforce demand for selected allied health professions in North Carolina, tracks job vacancy advertisements in print and online sources, summarizes vacancy advertisements by profession, region, and employer type, and describes the types of sign-on bonuses offered by employers.
  • Ambulance Services for Medicare Beneficiaries: State Differences in Usage, 2012-2014
    Policy Brief
    Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2017
    Ambulance services are at risk of scaling back or dissolving in some places. We analyzed Medicare beneficiaries' use of ambulance services across the U.S. Improved understanding of how beneficiaries, most of whom are elderly, use these services provides vital information for policymakers who set rules and regulations about access to the services.
  • Changes in the Supply and Rural-Urban Distribution of Counselors in the U.S., 2014-2021
    Fact Sheet
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2022
    There are rural vs. urban disparities and unequal distribution of behavioral health providers across U.S. Census Divisions. This study examined the trends in the supply of counselors by rural-urban status and Census Division.
  • Changes in the Supply and Rural-Urban Distribution of Psychologists in the U.S., 2014-2021
    Fact Sheet
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2022
    There are rural vs. urban disparities and unequal distribution of behavioral health providers across U.S. Census Divisions. This study examined the trends in the supply of psychologists by rural-urban status and Census Division.
  • Changes in the Supply and Rural-Urban Distribution of Social Workers in the U.S., 2014-2021
    Fact Sheet
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2022
    There are rural vs. urban disparities and unequal distribution of behavioral health providers across U.S. Census Divisions. This study examined the trends in the supply of social workers by rural-urban status and Census Division.
  • Community Factors and Outcomes of Home Health Care for High-Risk Rural Medicare Beneficiaries
    Policy Brief
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2016
    Outcomes of care vary by region of the country for rural Medicare beneficiaries receiving home health services for high-risk conditions such as heart failure. Those in the East South Central and West South Central Census Divisions had lower rates of community discharge and higher rates of hospital readmission and emergency department use.
  • Community Health Worker Roles and Responsibilities in Rural and Urban America
    Policy Brief
    Southwest Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 11/2019
    The primary aim of this study was to understand the evolving profession of community health workers (CHWs) in the U.S. Through focus groups in rural and urban regions of four states, we explored CHW roles and responsibilities, the growing professionalization of the field, and evolving interactions between CHWs and other care providers.
  • Community Health Worker Roles and Their Evolving Interprofessional Relationships in the United States
    Journal Article
    Southwest Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2021
    This project analyzes the evolving integration of Community Health Workers (CHWs) into the United States healthcare system. CHWs can aid patients in navigating the complex nature of medical services. Through focus groups with CHWs, three stages in the interprofessional relationships between CHWs and other care providers were identified.
  • Community Health Worker Sustainability: Funding, Payment, and Reimbursement Laws in the United States
    Journal Article
    Southwest Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 04/2021
    Recent changes have been made to community health worker (CHW) funding at the federal level, but payment structures vary from state to state. This paper aims to identify funding mechanisms that would enable CHW programs to sustain a robust workforce.
  • The Contributions of Community Colleges to the Education of Allied Health Professionals in Rural Areas of the United States
    Policy Brief
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2012
    This policy brief describes where community college allied health education programs (of those most relevant to rural healthcare delivery) are located in relation to rural populations and small rural hospitals.
  • The Contributions of Community Colleges to the Education of Allied Health Professionals in Rural Areas of the United States (Final Report)
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 10/2012
    Community colleges educate a significant portion of the nation's allied health workforce, and because they have a history of educating residents of their communities for local jobs, they are important to the economies of many rural communities.
  • The Development of Telehealth Laws in the U.S. from 2008 to 2015: A Legal Landscape
    Policy Brief
    Southwest Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 11/2019
    This study examines the scope and evolving nature of telehealth statutes and regulations in the U.S. Our research aims to understand changes in telehealth laws over time (2008-2015), variations in legal frameworks established across the U.S., and the extent that state laws regulate the primary care delivery through the use of telehealth.
  • Do Hospital Closures Affect Patient Time in an Ambulance?
    Policy Brief
    Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
    Date: 02/2019
    Our study explores how a local hospital closure changes patient time in an ambulance for 9-1-1 calls. Access to emergency department services in communities, especially rural communities, persists as a priority for the Medicare program. We found when hospitals close, rural patients requiring ambulance services are disproportionately affected.
  • Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Personnel in Rural Areas: Results From a Survey in Nine States
    Report
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 08/2015
    This study examines supply and demand for emergency response personnel, the involvement of medical directors, and the availability of medical consultation in rural and urban emergency service personnel (EMS) agencies in nine states.
  • Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Personnel: Comparing Rural and Urban Professional Experience and Provision of Evidence-Based Care
    Policy Brief
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 05/2022
    This policy brief examines the effects of emergency medical services (EMS) personnel level of experience and agency rurality on the provision of evidenced-based care. Compared with urban-serving EMS agencies, rural-serving agencies provided evidence-based care less often for stroke, hypoglycemia, and trauma but more often for seizures.
  • Professional Liability Issues and Practice Patterns of Obstetrical Providers in Washington State
    Journal Article
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 2006
    Objective: To describe recent changes in obstetric practice patterns and liability insurance premium costs and their consequences to Washington State obstetric providers (obstetrician-gynecologists, family physicians, certified nurse midwives, licensed midwives).
    Methods: All obstetrician-gynecologists, rural family physicians, certified nurse midwives, licensed midwives, and a simple random sample of urban family physicians were surveyed about demographic and practice characteristics, liability insurance characteristics, practice changes and limitations due to liability insurance issues, obstetric practices, and obstetric practice environment changes.
    Results: Fewer family physicians provide obstetric services than obstetrician-gynecologists, certified nurse midwives, and licensed midwives. Mean liability insurance premiums for obstetric providers increased by 61% for obstetrician-gynecologists, 75% for family physicians, 84% for certified nurse midwives, and 34% for licensed midwives from 2002 to 2004. Providers' most common monetary responses to liability insurance issues were to reduce compensation and to raise cash through loans and liquidating assets. In the 2 years of markedly increased premiums, obstetrician-gynecologists reported increasing their cesarean rates, their obstetric consultation rates, and the number of deliveries. They reported decreasing high-risk obstetric procedures during that same period.
    Conclusion: Liability insurance premiums rose dramatically from 2002 to 2004 for Washington's obstetric providers, leading many to make difficult financial decisions. Many obstetric providers reported a variety of practice changes during that interval. Although this study's results do not document an impending exodus of providers from obstetric practice, rural areas are most vulnerable because family physicians provide the majority of rural obstetric care and are less likely to practice obstetrics.
  • A Rural-Urban Comparison of Allied Health Average Hourly Wages
    North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
    Date: 01/2009
    This report uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to describe the extent to which rural-urban differentials exist in wages for 11 allied health professions, focusing on professions that are both likely to be found in rural communities and have adequate data to support hourly wage estimates.
  • Rural/Urban Disparities in Pneumococcal Vaccine Service Delivery Among the Fee-for-Service Medicare Population
    Policy Brief
    Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
    Date: 02/2018
    Using 2014 Medicare data, we found a significant disparity in pneumococcal vaccine service delivery to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries. Although primary care providers delivered the majority of pneumococcal vaccines to this population, pharmacy providers delivered a significantly greater proportion of vaccines in rural versus urban counties.
  • The State of Rural Hospital Nursing and Allied Health Professional Shortages
    Southwest Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 12/2005
    This study estimated shortages of nurses and allied health personnel among rural hospitals to gauge the difficulty experienced by rural hospitals in recruiting such personnel. The study also examined strategies these hospitals use in recruitment and retention of nurses and addressed strategies that might effectively address such shortages.
  • Update: Rural/Urban Disparities in Pneumococcal Vaccine Service Delivery Among the Fee-for-Service Medicare Population, 2012-2015
    Policy Brief
    Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
    Date: 11/2018
    Delivery of pneumococcal vaccines to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries increased 380% from 2014-2015 as a result of uptake of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13). However, a significant rural-urban disparity remains. Pharmacy providers delivered a significantly greater proportion of vaccines in rural versus urban counties.
  • What Is the Potential of Community Paramedicine to Fill Rural Healthcare Gaps?
    Journal Article
    WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
    Date: 11/2016
    This study collected information on rural community paramedicine in the U.S. programs to describe their goals, target populations, services offered, connections with local community providers and resources, outcomes measured, and results, where available.