Rural health and access to care has been a concern to health care providers and policymakers for many years. The daunting combination of a scarcity of health care resources; enduring poverty; and challenges related to education, technology, transportation, and infrastructure have resulted in widespread and growing health disparities for people living in rural areas, relative to their urban neighbors. Gaetano Forte and the AAMC Research and Action Institute have published a paper1 on these challenges. Efforts to ensure an adequate health workforce to address rural health needs have achieved mixed outcomes — recruitment has increased, yet rural health disparities remain. Most public policy focuses on recruiting providers to work in these underserved communities. In this paper, Gaetano Forte presents data from New York to illustrate the outcomes of these efforts and suggest potential avenues to enhance these outcomes and better address rural health disparities. While the data show New York’s efforts to be highly successful in recruiting providers into rural areas, the lesson learned is that additional measures are needed.
Citation: Forte G. Current Approaches to Rural Health Workforce Challenges Need Improvement. AAMC Research and Action Institute (AAMC Website). Published online May 1, 2025. https://www.aamcresearchinstitute.org/our-work/issue-brief/rural-health-workforce-challenges-need-improvement