ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights two issues that are likely to affect numerous nonprofits seeking to build collaborative agreements to serve individuals in rural areas: funding challenges; and challenges presented by the rural landscape. Rural communities face specific barriers in health-care delivery due to some common characteristics of nonmetropolitan areas. On average, residents of rural communities are older, less educated, and less likely to be insured, report poorer health conditions, are more likely to be unemployed, and lag behind in their use of technology. Rural communities also face a shortage of health-care providers, leaving residents with fewer options for care as well as transportation challenges in seeking care elsewhere. The federal government has designated the majority of rural communities as health professional shortage areas. It is predicted that access to health care in rural areas will only get worse as health-care consumption continues to rise due to an aging population while the health-care workforce continues to shrink.
