This article is a response to Kassam, Avery, and Ruelle's insights as presented in this forum on rural science education. Topics considered include troubling the urban/rural divide in the context of Indigenous knowledge and expanding to include the common Canadian notion of the "remote," a designation rooted in our national colonial…

Exploring the lives of rural lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and their identity work, Mary Gray's "Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America" offers one of the first ethnographic studies of queer rural life in the United States and their use of new media. Throughout, Gray provides…

Previous studies explored how urban or rural place of origin influences the source of social capital. There remains a need to consider how the place of origin affects the type of ties--family, friends, or "paisanos" (countrymen)--with those who provide support to migrants. We use data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP128) and…

Context: Rural women in the United States experience disparity in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment when compared to their urban counterparts. Given the 11% chance of lifetime occurrence of breast cancer for women overall, the continuum of breast cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery are of legitimate concern to rural women and…

Educational leadership has been the focus of many studies; however, leadership does not occur in a vacuum. Understanding the context in which it occurs will in turn help to explain the phenomenon itself. Rural communities in the United States have many differences when compared to urban and suburban areas. Twenty-eight percent of schools in the…

Purpose: Addressing substance abuse in rural America requires extending our understanding beyond urban-rural comparisons to how substance abuse varies across rural communities of different sizes. We address this gap by examining substance abuse prevalence across 4 geographic levels, focusing on youth (age 12-17 years) and young adults (age 18-25…

Context: Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of and recent trends in smoking among adults by type of rural location and by state. Methods: Random-digit telephone survey of adults aged 18 years or older who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance…

Pennsylvania, like the United States, experienced a remarkable economic expansion through the late 1990s. The significant growth and change of this decade, however, did not equally touch all regions and all industries. Traditional sectors continued to decline, while growth in what has been dubbed the "new economy," considered to be the…

Context: Diabetes poses a growing health burden in the United States, but much of the research to date has been at the state and local level. Purpose: To present a national profile of diabetes care provided to Medicare beneficiaries living in urban, semirural, and rural communities. Methods: Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes aged 18-75 were…

Context: Rural residents are disproportionately represented among the uninsured in the United States. Purpose: We compared nonelderly adult residents in 3 types of nonmetropolitan areas with metropolitan workers to evaluate which characteristics contribute to lack of employment-related insurance. Research Design and Analysis: Data were obtained…

Context: Geographic and racial variations in cancer incidence have been observed. Studies of colorectal carcinoma indicate a higher incidence and mortality rate for blacks than for whites in the United States. Purpose: We evaluated the effect of rural versus urban residence on colon cancer risk and stage of disease at diagnosis in blacks and…

Although previous research has found smoking rates to be higher among residents of rural areas, few studies have investigated rural-urban differences in exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Objective: This study contrasted the social climate surrounding ETS among Americans who resided in 5 levels of county urbanization. Design: Data were…

The 1970's ushered in widespread population deconcentration, seen in the pervasive shift of the United States population down the size-of-place scale. To document population changes in various sized places in the country from 1950 to 1980 and to show the pervasiveness of urban-rural deconcentration in nonmetropolitan areas, researchers examined…

Analyzing selected data on North Carolina's aged population (65 and over), this report utilizes U.S. Census figures, providing tabular data on the migration of the aged and the distribution of the aged population by residence in North Carolina and the U.S. and by North Carolina counties (rural and urban places). Major findings reveal that North…

This map of the contiguous United States uses a seven-color scheme to display a rurality index score for counties. The measure of rurality is intended to represent degree of isolation from and inability to participate in the programs of the larger society. It is intended to reflect both physical isolation and the isolation that comes from a lack…