Rural Research

I spent some time driving around Oregon last month, meeting people who are working in rural settings. At the training in Bend, a city of close to 100,000, surrounded by miles of spectacular rural lands, one participant raised an issue that I, as an urban resident/researcher, had never considered. They wanted to know if a rural community should try to partner with scientists who specialize in each of the problems they are looking at, so create many partnerships, or if there might be researchers who are "generalists." The question came out of the overwhelming logistics of trying to attract multiple researchers and institutions, separated by a geographic divide, to work in one small community. While some urban communities are literally fending off researchers, it seems the demand far outstrips supply in some rural settings.

Community-based research is a good option in rural settings, perhaps because for some rural communities it is the only option. If they don't organize to do the research no one will. And to add insult to injury, many of the community strengths, health problems, and policy barriers to health in rural communities are unique, both to rural settings, and in many cases singular to that rural community. By contrast, in a data rich environment like New York City, you can understand a lot just by looking at existing research, and sometimes conducting secondary analysis.

The good news is that many researchers who practice community-driven research are generalists out of necessity. If the community guides the research, how can one know in advance what expertise will be needed. Some communities and researchers do partner around very specific issues from the outset; they coalesce around common interest. But others come together to improve health in a community - be it defined by geography or experience. In that partnership framework, the ability of partners to draw on existing research, and to contact outside experts for consultation, is usually sufficient to plan research and action locally.

I was traveling Oregon with the Northwest Health Foundation, and was very impressed with their efforts to reach rural populations and to fund community-based participatory research in a way that would result in truly community-driven projects. I have since done some looking into the issue of research in rural settings and have found only a defunct rural research network. If you know of research resources targeted to rural communities, please post a comment with the details.