Rural vs. Urban Health Disparities

Introduction and Background Individuals in rural areas do not have the same access to health care as individuals who live in urban areas. Individuals who live in rural areas tend to not get the care that they need due to income and location. Purpose Statement Healthcare differs for those who live in rural versus urban populations. How can the intervention of telehealth help to decrease the health disparities for individuals who live in rural communities? Literature Review We searched the phrases “rural and urban” and “health disparities” in google scholar and restricted the search to articles that were published from 2018 to now and we narrowed it down to 3 articles. For the two articles that included our intervention of telehealth we did a Google Scholar advanced search and used the keywords “telehealth” and “health disparities” and filtered the search to where the most recent would be shown and we narrowed it down to 2 articles. Findings The research that we collected strongly suggests that there are health disparities among rural areas compared to urban areas, meaning that rural areas do not have as good of access to adequate health care. The intervention of telehealth however could help improve the health disparities for those in rural areas. Conclusions Rural areas do not have as good of access to healthcare as those who live in urban areas. Our research gave a variety of different examples of how rural areas have a disadvantage when it comes to the quality of healthcare individuals receive. Telehealth can help to decrease these health disparities and improve the quality of care that individuals in rural areas receive