Focus Rural America A Research and Policy Brief Series by RSS Members
Launched in 2019 by then-RSS President Kai Schafft, the series aimed to increase visibility of rural research and policy concerns during the 2020 election cycle. Despite the election having passed, the series continues due to persistent rural challenges, including those amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agriculture and Food
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Why farmers are dumping milk down the drain and letting produce rot in fields | Elizabeth Ransom, E. Melanie DuPuis, and Michelle Worosz | Read Article |
| Providing Food Assistance in a Pandemic: Views and Lessons Learned from the Frontlines in Northwest Mississippi | Anna Kleiner, John Green, Anne Cafer, Meagen Rosenthal, Lynn Woo, and Caroline Steil | Read Brief |
Community, Health, and Family
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Young Farmers Struggle With Child Care and Health Insurance – and that can threaten the future of family farms (May 2021) | Shoshanah Inwood, Andrea Rissing, and Florence Becot | Read article |
| Family Ties Protect Against Opioid Misuse Among U.S. Young Adults (March 2021) | Alexander Chapman, Ashton M. Verdery, and Shannon M. Monnat | Read brief |
| Allowing Cities to Raise the Minimum Wage Could Prevent Hundreds of Infant Deaths Annually (January 2021) | Douglas A. Wolf, Shannon M. Monnat, and Jennifer Karas Montez | Read brief |
| The Sugar Industry Gets Rich and We Get Sick (January 2021) | Mary Katherine A. Schutt and Shannon M. Monnat | Read brief |
| Health Conditions and an Older Population Increase COVID-19 Risks in Rural America (August 2020) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| Conservative Media Consumers Less Likely to Wear Masks and Less Worried about COVID-19 (Sept. 2020) | Lawrence Hamilton and Thomas Safford | Read brief |
| Prevention Failures and the Resurgence of Black Lung in Central Appalachia (July 2020) | Aysha Bodenhamer | Read brief |
| Rural Ohio Faces High Health Risk During the COVID-19 Pandemic (July 2020) | Danielle Rhubart, Shannon M. Monnat, and Yue Sun | Read brief |
| New York State’s Rural Counties Have Higher COVID-19 Mortality Risk (July 2020) | Shannon M. Monnat and Yue Sun | Read brief |
| High COVID-19 Mortality Risks in Pennsylvania’s Rural Counties (July 2020) | Raeven Faye Chandler, Shannon M. Monnat, and Yue Sun | Read brief |
| Rural America is more vulnerable to COVID-19 than cities are, and it’s starting to show (June 2020) | David J. Peters | Read article |
| Broadband Subscriptions Vary in Mississippi. Implications for the COVID-19 Era (May 2020) | John Green | Read brief |
| Health Risks for COVID-19 in Mississippi Counties (April 2020) | Vanessa Parks and Jamiko Deleveaux | Read brief |
| Coronavirus is spreading through Rural South’s High-Risk Population – Reopening Economies Will Make It Worse (April 2020) | Ann Cafer and Meagen Rosenthal | Read article |
| Rural Areas Face Higher and Distinct Risks of Serious COVID-19 Outcomes than Urban Areas (April 2020) | David J. Peters | Read brief |
| COVID-19 in the Rural South. A Perfect Storm of Disease, Health Access, and Co-Morbidity (April 2020) | Anne Cafer and Meagen Rosenthal | Read brief |
| Population 65 Years and Older Varies by Region and Non-Metro Status in Mississippi. Implications for COVID-19 (April 2020) | John Green | Read brief |
| An Older Population Increases Estimated COVID-19 Death Rates in Rural America (April 2020) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| Geographic Disparities in COVID-19 Testing. An Urgent Call to Action (April 2020) | Shannon M. Monnat and Kent Jason G. Cheng | Read brief |
| Views of a Fast-Moving Pandemic. A Survey of Granite Staters’ Responses to COVID-19 (April, 2020) | Thomas Safford and Lawrence Hamilton | Read brief |
| Why Coronavirus Could Hit Rural Areas Harder (March 2020) | Shannon Monnat | Read brief |
| Ideology Affects Trust in Science Agencies During a Pandemic (March, 2020) | Lawrence Hamilton and Thomas Safford | Read brief |
| The Spatial Distribution of New Hampshire’s Older Population Complicates Health Care Delivery During the Coronavirus Epidemic (March 2020) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| The Opioid Crisis in Rural and Small Town America (June 2018) | Shannon Monnat | Read brief |
| Drug Overdose Rates are Highest in Places with the Most Economic and Family Distress (March 2018) | Shannon Monnat | Read brief |
Natural Resources and the Environment
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Challenges of Large-Scale Solar Electric Siting in New York State. Part II, The Evolving Permitting Process (July 2020) | Roberta Nilson, David Kay, and Richard Stedman | Read brief |
| Challenges of Large-Scale Solar Electric Siting in New York State (May 2020) | David Kay, Roberta Nilson, and Richard Stedman | Read brief |
| Fracking Has Led to a ‘Bust’ for Pennsylvania School District Finances (January 2020) | Matthew Gardner Kelly and Kai A. Schafft | Read article |
| Temporary Workers of the US Recycling Industry (March 2019) | Alexis Econie and Michael L. Dougherty | Read article |
| Companies Blocked from Using West Coast Ports to Export Fossil Fuels Keep Seeking Workarounds (Nov. 2018) | Shawn Olson Hazboun and Hilary Boudet | Read article |
| Can Mining Produce Development in Central America? (April 2017) | Michael C. Dougherty | Read article |
| El Salvador Makes History (April 2017) | Michael C. Dougherty | Read article |
Population
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 Census Reflects Lagging U.S. Population (April 2021) | Kenneth M. Johnson | Read brief |
| New Hampshire’s Estimated Population Gain is the Largest in New England (December 2020) | Kenneth M. Johnson | Read brief |
| Migration Gains to New Hampshire From Other U.S. States Are Growing (December 2020) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| The U.S. Rural Mortality Penalty is Wide and Growing (October 2020) | Shannon M. Monnat | Read brief |
| Is Rural America Failing or Succeeding? Maybe Both (Sept. 2020) | Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter | Read brief |
| The Critical Role of Social Capital During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Lessons from Disaster Research (April, 2020) | Vanessa Parks | Read brief |
| Using Community Engagement Approaches to Bolster 2020 Census Participation (March, 2020) | John Green, Heather Hanna, Lynn Woo, Rachel Haggard, and Anne Buffington | Read article |
| Students Could Be Undercounted in the Census as Coronavirus Closes Colleges – Here’s Why That Matters (March 2020) | Dudley Poston | Read article |
| 2020 Mississippi Kids Count Fact Book (Jan. 2020) | John Green | Read brief |
| 3 Big Ways that the U.S. Will Change Over the Next Decade (January 2020) | Dudley Poston | Read article |
| Children of Color Already Make Up the Majority of Kids in Many US States (January 2020) | Rogelio Saenz and Dudley Poston | Read article |
| The U.S. White Majority Will Soon Disappear Forever (April 2019) | Dudley Poston and Rogelio Sáenz | Read article |
| Why the 2020 Census Matters to Rural Americans (April 2019) | John Green | Read article |
| Adding a Citizenship Question to the 2020 Census Would Cost Some States Their Congressional Seats (March 2019) | Dudley Poston | Read article |
| Six Charts that Illustrate the Divide Between Urban and Rural America (March 2017) | Brian Thiede | Read article |
| Where is “Rural America” and What Does it Look Like? (February 2017) | Kenneth Johnson | Read article |
| U.S. Fertility Rate Hits Record Low and Births Continue to Diminish (May 2019) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| Rural America Growing Again Due to Migration Gains (April 2019) | Kenneth Johnson | Read brief |
| Rural Depopulation in a Rapidly Urbanizing America (February 2019) | Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter | Read brief |
Rural Policy and Politics
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| The Public Good, Bad Policies, and Tough Times: When Profit and Public Interests Collide (February 2021) | Austin McNeill Brown, and Shannon M. Monnat | Read brief |
| 5 Ways Biden Can Help Rural America Thrive and Bridge the Rural-Urban Divide (January 2021) | Ann Eisenberg, Jessica A. Shoemaker, and Lisa R. Pruitt | Read article |
| Biden’s Victory Due to Increased Support Along the Entire Rural-Urban Continuum (November 2020) | Kenneth Johnson and Dante Scala | Read brief |
| Voting and Attitudes Along the Red-Blue Urban Continuum (October 2020) | Kenneth Johnson and Dante Scala | Read brief |
| Income Inequality is Getting Worse in US Urban Areas (April 2020) | Brian Thiede, David L. Brown, Jaclyn Butler, and Leif Jensen | Read article |
| In Housing Crisis, Rural Californians Need Greater Legal Protections and Access to Legal (January 2020) | Zach Newman and Lisa R. Pruitt | Read article |
Rural Poverty
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| The Chattering Classes Got the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Book Wrong – And They’re Getting the Movie Wrong, Too (December 2020) | Lisa Pruitt | Read article |
| Providing Food Assistance in a Pandemic: Views and Lessons Learned from the Frontlines in Northwest Mississippi (October 2020) | Anna Kleiner, John Green, Anne Cafer, Meagen Rosenthal, Lynn Woo, and Caroline Steil | Read brief |
| Concentrated Poverty Increased in Both Rural and Urban Areas Since 2000, Reversing Declines in the 1990s (November 2017) | Brian Thiede, Hyojung Kim, and Matthew Valasik | Read brief |
Rural Racial and Ethnic Minorities
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Rural COVID-19 Mortality Rates are Highest in Counties with the Largest Percentages of Blacks and Hispanics (Sept. 2020) | Kent Jason G. Cheng, Yue Sun, and Shannon Monnat | Read brief |
Youth, Education, and Rural Vitality
| Title | Authors | Link |
|---|---|---|
| School Closures Hit Rural Communities Hard (January 2020) | Mara Casey Tieken | Read article |