While some may imagine rural or remote lifestyles to be a reprieve from overcrowded urban areas, the reality can also mean a lack of access to resources. Establishments taken for granted in larger cities – health care clinics, an abundance of medical providers, or programs that address community-specific health concerns – often aren't in easy reach for these communities. So when a health concern arises, what are they to do?

This collection looks at how residents of rural communities are answering that question. Each story in this collection offers a distinct unique solution that addresses this overall theme, but several specific lessons emerge as key areas of focus: education, local empowerment, and increasing support for self-care. Although interconnected, these lessons diverge based on the specific needs that sparked them and their end results. 

• Increase education: Medical and health care professions are often associated with years of expensive formal schooling, but rural regions in Arizona and Colorado are showing that health education can be equitably distributed to any who want to learn. Offering one example of this, Sabine Galvis (@sabinegalvis) reports about efforts to offer community-specific health care education to the farmworker community in Willcox, Arizona. Similarly, in Colorado's Las Animas County, Kevin Simpson (@kevinjourno) investigates how a high school class is helping to educate and train students how to respond to emergency medical concerns, while also providing a potential career path.
• Downshift health care roles: Equipped with basic knowledge, residents of rural communities are finding ways to assume health care responsibilities that help their fellow community members. On the Flathead Reservation in Montana, Qainat Khan (@QNK11) reports that Native American tribal members are becoming EMTs and Medical Assistants in local clinics to meet the growing need. Likewise, Anna Patrick (@annaleapatrick) looks at a program in West Virginia that encourages community members to act as local health supporters for those who are living with diagnoses such as diabetes.
• Support self-management: Similar to downshifting health care roles, some communities are finding success in managing their own care. One example comes from Keith Hammonds (@keithhammonds) and Myers Reece, who reported on a senior-assistance program in Kalispell, Montana, that allows the seniors to usea shared-services approach to care. Another example is offered by Maggie Mullen (@maggiemlln). Reporting from Laramie, Wyoming, she investigates how a program called Healthy U is teaching individuals who are suffering from chronic diseases and their caregivers how to self-manage their health.