Giving Compass' Take:
- Tony Pipa interviews Tyler Malone about the role of rural hospitals not only as centers for community health, but also as cornerstones of civic life and economic development.
- How can philanthropy help sustain the important role of rural hospitals as centers of economic development supporting greater community well-being in rural areas?
- Learn more about key issues in health and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on health in your area.
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In the latest episode of the Reimagine Rural podcast, Tony Pipa, senior fellow at Brookings Center for Sustainable Development, travels to Ord, Nebraska, where the Valley County Health System serves as both a civic and economic anchor in the town’s long-standing renewal. In this expert Q&A, Tony speaks with Tyler Malone, deputy director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program at University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, about how rural hospitals bolster economic development and well-being; the financing models and federal policies that sustain them; what evidence says about modern facilities, recruitment, and patient perceptions; trends in closures and risk; and the promise of regional networks like the Nebraska High Value Network.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Tony Pipa (TP): How did you come to be a researcher focused on rural health systems? What motivates you to do this work, studying how rural hospitals bolster economic development?
Tyler Malone (TM): I grew up in the country outside Farmer City, Illinois. The name probably gives it away, but Farmer City is a small rural town of about 2,000 people. The claim-to-fame legend says that we were once featured on Sesame Street. I don’t know if that’s true, but in addition to growing up in Farmer City, both my parents grew up on small family farms. I was in FFA and 4-H growing up.
I had and still have a lot of love for my hometown and rural upbringing. I’ll be honest, I did not anticipate having a career in rural health when I was going through high school or even my undergrad studies—shout out to Illinois State University. It wasn’t until my graduate studies at the University of Michigan as a biostatistics student that I began doing public health research. I worked on several research projects and became interested in applying math, biology, and biostatistics to public health topics.
Read the full article about rural hospitals and economic development by Anthony F. Pipa and Tyler Malone at Brookings.