Public Health: Rural Health Services Research—2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a second Special Issue on “Public Health: Rural Health Services Research” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), an open access, peer-reviewed journal. For detailed information on the journal, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

The inverse notion of care (“availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the needs of the population served”) still holds true in many regional, rural and remote communities. These communities often face unique challenges to accessing health services due to their geographic location and the lack of critical mass, and often have poorer health and well-being outcomes than people living in urban areas. We have seen from the recent COVID-19 pandemic how the regional, rural and remote communities are impacted in a multitude of ways. While media attention has frequently focused on “doom and gloom", there are many impactful innovations in regional, rural and remote health services that target the changing demography, cost of living crisis, climate emergency, disasters, geopolitics uncertainty, funders’ priorities and technology adoption on healthcare service design and delivery, and health workforce preparation, recruitment and retention.

This second Special Issue of IJERPH aims to acknowledge, celebrate and share the innovations by exploring the many approaches to the design, delivery, implementation, evaluation of regional, rural and remote health services, including health workforce training, development and retention; integrated healthcare; telehealth; technological advancements in health; environmental health; education and training; capacity building in rural and remote communities; health policy; universal health coverage; Indigenous or First Nations health; and care provision for disadvantaged, marginalized and vulnerable communities. The issue is open to any topic related to regional, rural and remote health. The listed keywords below suggest just a few of the many possibilities.

Dr. David Lim
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• rural health services
• rural health
• social determinants of health
• health workforce
• health planning

• Public Health: Rural Health Services Research in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (12 articles)