2011 marks the end of three full years in the life of the West Virginia Rural Health Research Center. During the last year, the Center has been working on a number of new studies, as well as continuing research and dissemination efforts for earlier projects. The Center has made good progress, conducting and publishing research. This last year saw the publication of several of our studies in a Special Section on environmental health issues in the Journal of Rural Health. The Special Section helped to increase awareness of the importance of environmental issues for the health of rural populations. Similarly, the traffic to our website has grown significantly with more than 135,000 visits in 2011.

Additionally, the Center has developed new partnerships to support our work. One of these partnerships includes work with the National Center for Immunization & Respiratory Diseases, Health Services Research & Evaluation Branch at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for assistance with a Rural H1N1 study. This relationship is a direct results of earlier relationship building that occurred during our Year 1 Key Environmental Health Competencies study, where CDC investigators from three different CDC branches were active participants in our expert panel. A CDC member of that expert panel, Dr. Kimberly Gehle has now joined our Expert Work Group. New members are joining the Center and contributing to its activities every year, as details in this annual report show.

Thank you for your interest in the West Virginia Rural Health Research Center. With funding support from the Office of Rural Health Policy within the Health Resources and Services Administration, our Center strives to conduct high-quality, policy-relevant studies to understand and improve health and health care for rural populations. The focus of our Center is on the role of the environment on the health of rural populations. Environment includes aspects of the physical world in which we live, such as exposure to chemical pollutants, but it also includes features of the built environment such as access to good quality foods or health care resources, and features of social and economic environments such as the effects of poverty on health status. We invite you to peruse this site and examine the studies that we have conducted or are currently pursuing, and invite your questions, suggestions, or communications for ways that we can make our work as relevant as possible to improving rural population health.

Michael Hendryx, PhD
Director

A new book on addressing health disparities affecting both urban and rural Appalachians, Appalachian Health and Well-Being is now in print and our Center Director, Dr. Michael Hendryx, has contributed a chapter to the book.

Co-editors Robert Ludke, PhD, a professor in University of Cincinnati’s department of Family and Community Medicine, and Phillip Obermiller, PhD, a senior visiting scholar in the School of Planning within University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) have brought together nearly 40 leading researchers to compile this resource for those studying public health and to help researchers who are investigating the Appalachian population further. The book includes 17 chapters and touches on everything from genetic contribution to health in Appalachia to major health issues and available health care resources in these areas.

“There are three major sections covered in the book: underlying determinants of health, specific health conditions that are prevalent in the region and health issues related to urban Appalachians,” Ludke says. “When you look at the region as a whole—which is made up of 420 counties—it is a highly rural area. There are a lot of issues in terms of health care delivery, and the region has always had areas of deep poverty.

“There are also a lot of negative stereotypes about Appalachians—that they are ‘stupid’, ‘backward,’ ‘inbred.’ These are all myths. For example, there is not a higher level of genetic-related disease in an Appalachian community than in any other community. We hope in promoting this book, we will educate people to stop using stereotypes and build support for this group.”

The book is now available for pre-order from University Press of Kentucky, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble. It will be released March 28th.