Two RSS Members Featured in Forbes' Rural Health Resilience Series
Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and physician Dr. Bill Frist, writing in Forbes, highlighted the work of RSS Members, Shannon Monnat and Tim Slack. The article was the first installment of a four-part series titled “Rural Health Resilience: Healing the ‘Other America.’” It highlights ongoing and emergent health care challenges across rural America—particularly those rooted in structural inequities, under-resourced public health systems, and policy neglect. Monnat and Slack bring a sociological lens to this national conversation, emphasizing that rural health issues are not only medical but deeply social, economic, and political.
“We often treat rural as a category of deficiency. But the truth is that rural communities have enormous assets—tight-knit networks, cultural resilience, and deep place-based knowledge. They just need systems that work with them, not around them.”—Shannon Monnat, Syracuse University
Their perspectives reflect years of rural-focused research and demonstrate the Rural Sociological Society’s commitment to addressing real-world challenges through scholarship. This feature in Forbes brings national attention to the value of rural sociology in framing health care discourse and in developing pragmatic, community-centered solutions.