Health policy development and advocacy in the areas of health disparity reduction and rural health are often under-looked and under-utilized vehicles for change. Policy development and advocacy can be directed toward enhancement and expansion of the existing rural health and health disparity agenda or has the potential to create new and innovative legislation that is supportive of health disparity and rural health issues. The major aims of the Rural Health Policy efforts of the NCRHP are: 1) to suggest strategies for the development and advocacy of rural health and health disparity policy; and, 2) to promote the use of data driven and community defined issues as triggers for policy development and advocacy. Rural Health Policy works closely with agencies such as Illinois Rural Health Association, Center for Rural Health of the Illinois Department of Public Health, and Illinois Health Education Consortium/AHEC.

An evidence-based perspective has been employed as the basis for the Center's health policy development and advocacy efforts. A number of evidence based initiatives in the research, education and public policy arenas provide avenues for direction setting in each of these core areas. In addition, the tracking of current and pending legislation through a variety of web-based search engines provides easy access to governmental activity on this topic.

Center staff invite active collaboration with other statewide entities and leaders to improve rural health care. Examples include the Illinois Rural Health Association, Center for Rural Health of the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Area Health Education Consortium, Rural Partners and the University of Illinois Extension. The Center also has a presence of the Governor's Rural Affairs Council that is chaired by the Lieutenant Governor.

 

Currently the NCRHP works on policy development and advocacy through two major efforts:

Policy Briefs

Policy briefs are short and concise statements related to policy and advocacy efforts of the NCRHP. Click here to read more…


Legislation and Policy

The rural health policy agenda is of great importance to the Centers activities. NCRHP aims to provide its audiences with up to date legislative and policy related activities at the local, state, regional, national and international levels. Click here to read more...