Celebrating National Rural Health Day: Highlighting Policy and Research

More than 60 million Americans live in rural communities - small towns, farming communities and villages - which are the social and economic backbone of the nation. Yet while these communities may be great places to live and work, they have their own special healthcare challenges.

That is why the work of the Rural Research Resource Centers (RHRCs) program is so important. It is the only federal research program dedicated to producing policy-relevant research on rural health. The RHRCs work in consultation with the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy to conduct policy-oriented research on rural health services essential to understanding the challenges in rural communities and how those communities are, or may be, impacted by government policy in the areas of access to healthcare, health insurance, and population health. 

The Rural Health Research Gateway website was created to provide easy access to RHRC projects, summaries of research in progress, and to support the dissemination of research results and policy-oriented information for use by rural stakeholders and decision-makers.

More information and resources.

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HHS Secretary Azar Comments on Data Showing Rising E-Cigarette Use Among Youth

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar issued the following statement regarding the sharp uptick in e-cigarette use among youth reported in the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey:

“America’s youth are facing a public health crisis that threatens an entire generation: skyrocketing use of nicotine products, brought on by access to flavored products in particular. Use of these products, including e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, and cigars, put our youth at risk for a lifetime of nicotine addiction.

E-cigarettes present an important, potentially lifesaving opportunity to help currently addicted adult smokers quit combustible cigarettes. But in trying to build this off-ramp from a deadly addiction, we cannot let e-cigarettes become an on-ramp for kids to enter a lifetime of nicotine addiction and tobacco use.

New data from the National Youth Tobacco survey show the number of teenagers using e-cigarettes almost doubling in just the last year. But we can use a targeted approach to tackle this challenge: The data also show that kids not only choose flavored products more often than adults do, but also that flavors are a major reason they use these products in the first place. Flavors increase the likelihood of kids progressing from experimentation to regular use, and a portion of them will go on to use combustible tobacco products, with the huge added dangers of tobacco-related disease.

FDA’s enforcement efforts and policy framework would restrict access to most flavored e-cigarettes and limit the chances of youth beginning to use these products, while ensuring the products are available to adult smokers as an alternative to combustible cigarettes.
Our obligation at HHS is always to the public health, and we believe FDA’s goals strike the right public health balance in addressing the multifaceted challenge we have before us today.”

Azar statement: http://bit.ly/2RXivod.

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Also of Interest

Please note: The ADAI Clearinghouse email has changed to adaiclr@uw.edu.

A Summary of Recently Published Research and Commentaries on Overdose Prevention, Naloxone, and Related Topics (November 2018, Comments are those of Caleb Banta-Green, PhD, Principal Research Scientist, ADAI).

A Rural Community Decided To Treat Its Opioid Problem Like A Natural Disaster (NPR).

Methamphetamine Roils Rural Towns Again Across The U.S. (NPR).

Newly Approved Opioid 10 Times Stronger Than Fentanyl (Partnership News Service).

Juul Will Stop Selling Flavored E-Cigarette Pods to Stores (Partnership News Service).

Ruling on Kratom Expected Soon From FDA (Partnership News Service).

U.S. Drug-Related Death Rate Highest Among Group of Developed Nations (Partnership News Service).