Rural Disaster Health
Topic Collection
May 16, 2025

In 2016, the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau claimed that rural areas covered 97% of the nation’s land area but contained 19.3% of the population (approximately 60 million people). Rural areas are served by a variety of healthcare facilities and practitioners who face specific challenges associated with workforce and other resource shortages, socioeconomic factors that add to resident health risks, and public health issues that often compete with the ability to plan for and respond to natural and human-caused events. Tribal communities (many of which are located in rural areas) have the autonomy to respond to and manage incidents that occur on their lands. These resources highlight guidance for and lessons learned by healthcare practitioners who serve rural and tribal communities.

Planners may also wish to access several other related ASPR TRACIE Topic Collections for more information. The Populations with Access and Functional Needs Topic Collection helps ensure that planning before an incident occurs is inclusive of the whole community. Ambulatory Care and Federally Qualified Health Centers highlights the roles that clinics, community health centers, mental/behavioral healthcare providers, federally-qualified health centers, private physician offices, and other outpatient facilities play in disaster response by addressing the needs of patients with both acute and chronic conditions. The Alternate Care Sites Collection highlights recent case studies, lessons learned, tools, and promising practices for developing and activating these sites. And the Virtual Medical Care Topic Collection sheds light on the recent increase in the use of virtual medical care/platforms (e.g., call centers and web- or telephone-based triage and treatment systems) to coordinate care and provide remote access to specialty care and assessment (e.g., trauma, stroke, and psychiatric) which can be leveraged during disasters to broaden access to specialty consultation (e.g., for burn injuries or pediatric patients). Access all comprehensively developed Topic Collections for general emergency operations planning and information specific to facility type and hazard.

Each resource in this Topic Collection is placed into one or more of the following categories (click on the category name to be taken directly to that set of resources). Resources marked with an asterisk (*) appear in more than one category.