ArticleInternational journal for equity in health2024
Rural-urban differences in health service utilization in upper-middle and high-income countries: a scoping review.
Article in International journal for equity in health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Oral Health Interventions to Improve Access in Rural Areas of High-Income Countries: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Prevalence of Undiagnosed Hypertension in Bangladesh: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) · 2025Pooled it
- Pilot study examining the effect of rurality on engagement and abstinence for adult users of a text-message cessation intervention.BMC public health · 2025Trial
- Cancer clinical trial recruitment for patients from rural areas: a scoping review.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Climate Change and Sarcopenia: Mechanisms, Vulnerabilities, and Public Health Implications.Calcified tissue international · 2026Review
- Article
- Predictors of rural medical practice in Aotearoa New Zealand: a national outcomes prospective cohort study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Financial protection and healthcare utilization for low-income populations under China's multi-tiered health financing system: a cross-sectional study in an Eastern city.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Implications of federalism: patterns of healthcare utilisation across Austrian federal states - insights from the Health Interview Surveys.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Detecting Sociodemographic Biases in the Content and Quality of Large Language Model-Generated Nursing Care: Cross-Sectional Simulation Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Assessing regional disparities and trends in health resource allocation from sub-provincial cities in China.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Evaluating health system expenditure across the rural-urban spectrum in New Zealand: a study protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Lower ambulatory care availability and greater hospital capacity are associated with higher hospital case volumes.Research in health services & regions · 2025Article
- Association Between the Declining Conversion Factor and Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThis scoping review aims to understand the extent and attributes of literature evaluating differences between rural and urban populations' utilization of health services in upper-middle and high-income countries.
methodThe review was conducted in line with established scoping review methodology guidelines. We used the "Participants, Concept and Context" framework to guide the inclusion criteria and determination of the review's scope. Studies published over a 15-year period (2008-2022) were identified using Embase, Medine, PubMed, and Scopus databases. Study attributes, areas of focus and findings were reviewed and extracted.
resultsThe search identified 179 studies. The number of studies published looking at rural-urban differences in health service utilization has increased over time. The focus of these studies is relatively evenly split between primary and secondary sectors. The majority of studies observed less service utilization by rural populations than urban-especially so in primary-sector services. When higher rural utilization of secondary services was observed this was frequently attributed to poor access to other services that would have had the potential to mitigate the secondary demand. Studies were not commonly grounded in principles of equity or fairness and rarely offered value judgements on observed differences in utilization. There were limited system-level studies - the vast majority being disease- or service-specific analyses. We consider this a notable gap in the literature.
conclusionThis scoping review identifies key parameters of studies on rural-urban variation in health service utilization. The finding that most studies observed rural populations utilized comparatively less services is concerning, in the context of general evidence about high levels of health need in rural communities. Future system-level research considering the combined variations in need and utilization appears a priority.
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Registered trials
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