ArticleBMC health services research2022
Measuring rurality in health services research: a scoping review.
Article in BMC health services research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Geographical Disparities in Faecal Immunochemical Test-Based Colorectal Cancer Screening Participation and Positivity Rates: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2026Pooled it
- Recruiting Rural Patients for Clinical Research: Lessons From a Colorectal Cancer Screening Trial.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2026Trial
- Cancer Risk Factors, Screening, and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation Across the U.S. Urban-to-Frontier Continuum.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2026Article
- Rural-urban disparities in prostate-specific antigen testing and shared decision-making in the US.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2026Article
- Outpatient Care Fragmentation and Patient Satisfaction With Care.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2026Article
- Testing and evaluating updated variants of the rurality index for Japan: a nationwide methodological study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Mental Health and Individual Resilience in Contexts of Social Vulnerability: Evidence from Rural Texas.Community mental health journal · 2026Article
- Beyond Rurality: Individual Socioeconomic Status and Chronic Disease Prevalence.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Development of an intervention to incentivize secure firearm storage among veterans at risk for suicide.Injury epidemiology · 2026Article
- The cancer divide: setting research priorities for understanding and addressing extreme rurality in cancer care delivery.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2025Article
- A novel approach to incorporate frontier areas into urban-rural geographic classifications: Integrated Metropolitan-to-Frontier Area Codes.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2025Article
- Metrics of Urbanicity and Rurality in US-Based Epidemiologic Studies of Ambient Temperature and Health: A Scoping Review.Current environmental health reports · 2025Article
- Rural Nursing Workforce Sustainability in Australia: A Scoping Review of Global Retention Strategies.The Australian journal of rural health · 2025Article
- Self-Reported Versus County-Based Rurality of People Who Gave Birth in 6 US States, 2020.American journal of public health · 2025Article
- Effects of using different rural measurements on estimates of hospitalizations for depression and substance use.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Addressing challenges and barriers to rural Veteran participation in clinical research within the Veterans Affairs healthcare system.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- Early Childhood Vaccination Coverage and Patterns by Rural-Urban Commuting Area.American journal of preventive medicine · 2025Article
- The Association between the Type of Mental Health Treatment Received, Metropolitan Status and Gender.Community mental health journal · 2025Article
- Health differences between rural and non-rural Texas counties based on 2023 County Health Rankings.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Access to Firearms and Opioids Among Veterans at Risk for Suicide.JAMA network open · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThis study is a scoping review of the different methods used to measure rurality in the health services research (HSR) literature.
methodsWe identified peer-reviewed empirical studies from 2010-2020 from seven leading HSR journals, including the Journal of Rural Health, that used any definition to measure rurality as a part of their analysis. From each study, we identified the geographic unit (e.g., county, zip code) and definition (e.g., Rural Urban Continuum Codes, Rural Urban Commuting Areas) used to classify categories of rurality. We analyzed whether geographic units and definitions used to classify rurality differed by focus area of studies, including costs, quality, and access to care. Lastly, we examined the number of rural categories used by authors to assess rural areas.
findingsIn 103 included studies, five different geographic units and 11 definitions were used to measure rurality. The most common geographic units used to measure rurality were county (n = 59, 57%), which was used most frequently in studies examining cost (n = 12, 75%) and access (n = 33, 57.9%). Rural Urban Commuting Area codes were the most common definition used to measure rurality for studies examining access (n = 13, 22.8%) and quality (n = 10, 44%). The majority of included studies made rural versus urban comparisons (n = 82, 80%) as opposed to focusing on rural populations only (n = 21, 20%). Among studies that compared rural and urban populations, most studies used only one category to identify rural locations (n = 49 of 82 studies, 60%).
conclusionGeographic units and definitions to determine rurality were used inconsistently within and across studies with an HSR focus. This finding may affect how health disparities by rural location are determined and thus how resources and federal funds are allocated. Future research should focus on developing a standardized system to determine under what circumstances researchers should use different geographic units and methods to determine rurality by HSR focus area.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.