Partnerships among rural industries, schools of nursing, rural health departments, and rural hospitals in a geographic area can reach workers at the work site who would have no other access to preventive health care. Although cardiovascular disease prevention (CVD) strategies were used by the authors, the approaches could be adapted for prevention of other diseases. Two schools of nursing partnered with small industries to identify CVD risk in employees and received referral back-up through partnership with rural health departments and hospitals. The referral agencies were used for follow-up of abnormal findings. Research methods used to test the outcomes of the prevention strategies found statistically significant improvements in CVD risk factors. This research project demonstrates that rural workers were reachable at the work site, that they were unaware of their personsl risk factors for CVD until screened by school of nursing faculty and students, and that they changed diet and physical activity behaviors when informed of their CVD risk profiles. Existing resources were strengthened through partnerships which benefited rural worker populations. None of the partners could have reached these workers alone because of scarce resouces; combining their efforts was effective. Ethnic diversity in the rural worker population was related to race, rural culture and residence. This presentation demonstrates one effective strategy for achieving the Healthy People 2010 objectives.
Learning Objectives: After attending this session, the participant should be able to: 1. Describe the startegies needed to develop partnerships in rural communities. 2. Identify the relationship of rural population disparities to the Healthy People 2010 objectives. 3. Describe strategies which will provide nursing students with experiences in rural health care delivery. 4. Examine the effectiveness of rural health education experiences in reaching rural work site populations.
Keywords: Occupational Health, Rural Populations
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.