Structural Urbanism Contributes To Poorer Health Outcomes For Rural America.

Rural populations disproportionately suffer from adverse health outcomes, including poorer health and higher age-adjusted mortality. We argue that these disparities are due in part to declining health care provider availability and accessibility in rural communities. Rural challenges are exacerbated by "structural urbanism"-elements of the current public health and health care systems that disadvantage rural communities.

An ecological analysis of food outlet density and prevalence of type II diabetes in South Carolina counties.

Background: Studies suggest that the built environment with high numbers of fast food restaurants and convenience stores and low numbers of super stores and grocery stores are related to obesity, type II diabetes mellitus, and other chronic diseases. Since few studies assess these relationships at the county level, we aim to examine fast food restaurant density, convenience store density, super store density, and grocery store density and prevalence of type II diabetes among counties in South Carolina.

Methods: Pearson's correlation between four types of food outlet densities- fast food restaurants, convenience stores, super stores, and grocery stores- and prevalence of type II diabetes were computed.