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Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults
There is no universal definition of rurality due to the heterogeneity in what makes a place “rural” or “urban”. This study explored how elements of rurality are related to each other, and how the elements that define rurality vary by region. Data were abstracted for all 1948 non-metropolitan countie...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741357/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2091 |
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author | Cohen, Steven McIlmail, Julia Greaney, Mary |
author_facet | Cohen, Steven McIlmail, Julia Greaney, Mary |
author_sort | Cohen, Steven |
collection | PubMed |
description | There is no universal definition of rurality due to the heterogeneity in what makes a place “rural” or “urban”. This study explored how elements of rurality are related to each other, and how the elements that define rurality vary by region. Data were abstracted for all 1948 non-metropolitan counties in the contiguous 48 states on rurality. K-means cluster analyses (k=4-8) were conducted to examine classification structures among component variables examining regional differences. In the South region, the majority (51.2%) were “Type 2” counties: low population size and density but higher urbanized population. The Midwest had a majority of “Type 3” counties (56.4%): intermediate for population size and density, but higher distances to metro areas. These exploratory findings underscore the heterogeneity and regional variability in rurality and how those measures are structurally related to each other, and essential to understanding those factors that truly drive rural-urban health disparities for older adults. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Rural Aging Interest Group. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7741357 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77413572020-12-21 Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults Cohen, Steven McIlmail, Julia Greaney, Mary Innov Aging Abstracts There is no universal definition of rurality due to the heterogeneity in what makes a place “rural” or “urban”. This study explored how elements of rurality are related to each other, and how the elements that define rurality vary by region. Data were abstracted for all 1948 non-metropolitan counties in the contiguous 48 states on rurality. K-means cluster analyses (k=4-8) were conducted to examine classification structures among component variables examining regional differences. In the South region, the majority (51.2%) were “Type 2” counties: low population size and density but higher urbanized population. The Midwest had a majority of “Type 3” counties (56.4%): intermediate for population size and density, but higher distances to metro areas. These exploratory findings underscore the heterogeneity and regional variability in rurality and how those measures are structurally related to each other, and essential to understanding those factors that truly drive rural-urban health disparities for older adults. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Rural Aging Interest Group. Oxford University Press 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7741357/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2091 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Abstracts Cohen, Steven McIlmail, Julia Greaney, Mary Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title | Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title_full | Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title_fullStr | Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title_full_unstemmed | Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title_short | Defining Rurality: Structural Relationships, Regional Differences, and Applications for Research With Older Adults |
title_sort | defining rurality: structural relationships, regional differences, and applications for research with older adults |
topic | Abstracts |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741357/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2091 |
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