Rural Road to Health

A journey down the rural road to health. This podcast explores rural health topics through conversations with students, academics, clinicians, researchers, and people that live and work in rural areas.

Rural Road to Health is a health podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 91 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Rural Road to Health, a health show with 91 episodes published.

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  Rural Road to Health

  Season 4 Wrap-up

  Aug 19, 20265 minS4

  Highlights from season 4 and find out what is planned for season 5 of the Rural Road to Health. Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health ! Rural Health Compass

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  Episode #16

  Dr Roshni Jhan Ganguly - Project SETU Foundation Trust

  Aug 9, 202642 minS4

  Dr Roshni Jhan Ganguly , a family doctor and founder of Project SETU Foundation Trust . Dr Roshni identified that there was a gap between urban and rural healthcare. About 70% of India's population lives in villages where access to primary health care services may not be easily accessible. Project SETU was created to be the bridge that connects urban physicians with rural health care. Today we will talk to her about Project Setu and its mission. Episode summary: 01.30 Dr Roshni tells us more about her professional background and interest in rural health 03.30 What is project SETU and why was it started? 10.30 What is the rural context like where she works? 15.45 What challenges are communities facing when needing to access healthcare services? 19.30 What kind of services does project SETU provide and what is the impact of those activities? 25.45 What challenges has she faced while doing this work? 29.00 What are some key lessons when engaging with communities? 35.00 How important is trust in the work that they do? 38.30 What are her hopes for Project SETU going forward? Key Messages: Family medicine is not confined to the four walls of a clinic. She thought why not really serve the people who really need it. Project SETu Foundation Trust was born from the question - how do we build bridges rather than provide temporary solutions?. The vision is to bridge the gap between healthcare and hope, the urban expertise and rural needs, and between illness and wellness. Project SETU evolved into a holistic community development organization where healthcare became the entry point but it was not the destination. Villages in India are different, generally the population comprises of the state population and indigenous population. India has many different languages, cuisines and cultures. A typical village will have thatched houses, mud houses or brick houses. The cooking medium may be a stove which is fueled by cow dung. Women take care of the household and can be farmers. Male population is mostly farmers. There is also a migrating population which may be travelling to the cities for work. The population of the village can be about 50000 people. ASHA workers (Accredited Social Health Activists) go door to door and check on people. They are community health workers funded by the government. They find out about the needs of the population and collaborate with local healthcare workers. Community development is not easy and requires consistency, consistency requires resources. Building trust takes time, deep rooted beliefs and behavior can not be changed overnight. Project SETU initially does a needs assessment survey and get the community together to talke about health awareness and the community share their challenges. This is how they begin to build trust. Then they organize some health screening camps. Project SETU collaborates with other organizations so that they can provide other training that the community needs such as training for farmers on organic farming. Project SETU also finds out about the activities and products being produced in the community and helps to promote these more widely. In this way they support local economies. During this process they build a local team with the village they are serving which then keep the services going and continue to connect the village to project SETU. It was a challenge to get everyone together at the same time and in the same place. Different political influences have been a challenge they have faced. By engaging the community and supporting their livelihoods the community feels like they can trust what is being done. It is important to understand the local language, customs and culture. Sports, art, dance and music can be great enablers and a way to support young people develop and achieve their dreams. Email: projectsetu.ft@gmail.com Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health ! Rural Health Compass

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  Episode #15

  Prof Alexandra Johnstone & Dr Daniel Crabtree - Rural Food Environments

  Jul 29, 202649 minS4

  Prof Alexandra Johnstone and Dr Daniel Crabtree are from Scotland. Prof Johnstone is Chair in Human Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen. She is currently leading on a UKRI Transforming Food Systems Grant focusing on Food Insecurity and Obesity. Dr Crabtree is a Research Fellow with the NIHR-funded Health Determinants Research Collaboration Aberdeen and has previously worked with the University of Aberdeen and the University of the Highlands and Islands. Episode summary: 01.30 Alex and Dan share more about their background and their interest in rural communities 04.10 What are food environments and why do they matter? 10.20 How might rural food environments be different? 14.30 How is food insecurity being managed in Scotland and the UK? 18.00 How does inequity impact rural food environments? 20.30 How much is climate change impacting food security for the UK and globally? 26.10 What are some of the key issues when thinking about food insecurity and obesity? 33.00 What is the role of local retailers? 38.00 What impact does less access to healthy food have in rural and remote communities? 41.30 What are some key insights and policy recommendations from their work? Key Messages: Food environments are everything from the farm to the fork or from soil to sewage. It involves numerous stakeholders. We have a huge proportion of people living with obesity, it has a higher prevalence in areas of social deprivation. It is not about blaming individuals but about how we can change the food environment to make it easier to make healthy choices. BridgeAct was a project which developed an interactive toolkit for transforming food systems, it helps decision makers plan effective impact delivery strategies. It was tested by Aberdeen city council. Food insecurity having the fear of not having enough food to feed your family over the next week. Food security is more about imports and exports and having food available at a national level. Remote and rural communities do encounter unique challenges when trying to access healthy and affordable food. This can include disruptions to long food supply chains, often this impacts island communities more often. Food delivery services are more common in urban areas but in rural and remote areas they are often not available. People living in rural and remote communities depend on cars and fuel to access supermarkets. The food can be more expensive but so can the cost of petrol. Public transport can be unreliable or non-existent. Food that is produced in rural farming communities is often not consumed there but sent away for packaging and then potentially resold to them. Surveys of people have shown that low prices on healthy and sustainable foods, particularly staples, would help families plan their food purchases allowing for better food budgeting and meal plans. There is complexity around promoting healthy food, there is no uniform definition of what a healthy sustainable food would be. When oil prices increase this has a huge impact on spending in rural and remote areas, not just for food purchases, but also the ability to get to work or take children to school. Global warming impacts food production and our ability to have enough food to feed our populations. It impacts food systems and health systems and people's ability to stay well. Vertical farms have controlled environmental conditions, they may not be the most environmentally friendly solutions as they require electricity, but they do allow communities to grow food all year round. Investment in local food production may be a way to improve local food system resilience. Local communities of practice may also be useful for practices and strategies to guard against food shortages. The ask for retailers is to offer a range of foods that are both healthy and environmentally sustainable, this would include fresh food but also frozen and tinned produce which has a longer shelf life. The paradox of food insecurity and obesity, someone with a limited income to spend on food, they are more likely to make choices to buy the foods with the lowest cost. These tend to be foods high in fat, sugar and salt, this then drives rise in obesity. Food costs have increased by 40% in the last five years. This means people rely on discounts and offers which are often for unhealthy foods. If a community only has a small local convenience store, then you will struggle to access fresh nutritious food. The food there is also often much more expensive. Rural and remote populations do not always have the option to choose a different retailer if they are not satisfied with what is available, however many accept that this is part of life in those communities. The local retailer also has an important role in those communities as they can often provide much needed spaces for social interactions. Explored facilitators and barriers to accessing healthy food for older adults living in rural and remote areas. Barriers around price, distribution and access, however older adults may be less inclined to cook for themselves. Lunch clubs can be ways to improve social connection and nutrition. In the tourist season on the islands this can lead to food shortages and requires a change to meal plans. Price is the greatest barrier preventing healthy food purchasing. Policymakers could level the playing field and compel all supermarkets to price healthy foods in line with inflation to ensure more equitable access for all. Legislation to prioritize healthy food promotion. Reducing ultraprocessed food and prohibiting them to be placed on the shelves at promotional prices. Prioritize long term funding commitment for local initiative in rural and island communities. Investment in community food preparation and storage facilities, this can help buffer impacts of shocks to local food systems. Supporting communities of practice and making food supply chains more resilient. Contact info for Prof Johnstone and Dr Crabtree Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health ! Rural Health Compass

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  Episode #14

  Piotr Sadlocha - European LEADER Association for Rural Development

  Jul 19, 202627 minS4

  Piotr Sadlocha is the president of the European LEADER Association for Rural Development. LEADER is a European programme, with the aim to involve local actors in rural areas in the development of their own regions by forming Local Actions Groups (LAGs) and designing and implementing strategies. The LEADER programme already exists for almost 30 years. Episode summary: 01.05 Piotr shares how he became more involved with rural communities02.00 What is the European Leader Association for Rural Development, LEADER and Local Action Groups (LAGs)? 08.30 What are some of the challenges facing rural communities in Europe? 14.00 What is the role of rural communities in wider society? 20.00 What steps could be taken to improve the relationship with rural areas within Europe? Key Messages: ELARD is a pan European organization, the membership is made up of more than 2600 Local Action Groups representing people living and working in rural areas. LEADER takes a bottom up approach to rural development which started over 30 years ago. It was created to support rural development with the active engagement of communities and society through Local Action Groups. This project receives financial support from the European Union. Local Actions Groups as what is a challenge in their area and take on different activities such as job creation, support for local business, creating walking and biking paths, supporting local education and developing local infrastructure. One of the biggest challenges for rural Europe is depopulation. When there are fewer people there are less taxes collected and this usually means a lower budget for the local authority. However as there is usually a higher proportion of elderly people, spending for care tends to be higher. The quality of life in rural areas can also represent a challenge. It is important to create a good quality of life if you want younger people to stay in these areas such as better education, employment opportunities and healthcare access. There are often fewer opportunities for women in rural areas to return to work after having children. It is important to ensure that rural women are not disadvantaged. Rural communities are important for food production and food security. Many people in rural areas in eastern Europe are against the EU as they do not feel supported. They then vote against the EU as they do not see the benefits of being part of the EU. In Poland there is a large difference in investment between rural and urban areas. In some rural areas the investment is 10x less per person than in urban areas. Why is there such a large difference in investment between rural and urban areas in the EU? Rural people often use less money so they do not travel around Europe and make use of the opportunity of social mobility across EU countries as often. To maintain European values and democracy it is important to give citizens the power to participate in decision making, particularly around questions related to their communities and lives. Learn more about ELARD: https://elard.eu/ Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health ! Rural Health Compass

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  Episode #13

  Prof Tanya Ovenden-Hope - Educational Isolation & The Pretty Poverty Report

  Jul 9, 20261h 14mS4

  Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope is Professor of Education and Dean of Place and Social Purpose at Plymouth Marjon University in the UK. Tanya has spent many years exploring social inequity and educational disparity with a particular focus on the challenges for coastal, rural and small schools. More recently she also led on the Pretty Poverty report which looks at how current government measures underestimate rural and coastal poverty in Cornwall. We discussed both of these topics in more detail. Episode Summary: 01.30 Tanya tells us about her professional background and how she became interested in rural education and rural inequity 09.20 What are the challenges for rural, coastal, and small schools? 17.50 Education as a social determinant of health and how we speak about these topics 31.10 How did the idea for the Pretty Poverty report happen? 46.05 What were the key findings of the Pretty Poverty Report and why does the IMD not accurately capture rural and coastal deprivation? Key Messages: In many rural and coastal areas in the UK affluence lives next to poverty, and this observation got her thinking about what the impact of this was in the educational setting. The concept of educational isolation resonated with countries around the world as a place-based problem. It identified three compounding factors of place which were causing challenges for schools: geographical remoteness, socio-economic deprivation, and cultural isolation. If you are a child from a persistently disadvantaged background going to school in a coastal area, you will do less well than a child from a persistently disadvantaged background going to school in a rural area, who will do less well than a child from a persistently disadvantaged background who goes to school in an urban area, who will do less well than a persistently disadvantaged child who goes to school in London. Lack of Child and Adolescent Mental health services is impacting on child attendance at school. Schools lack funding to support the needs of children with additional educational needs. Schools in coastal and rural areas receive thousands of pounds less per student which compounds the cycle of poorer outcomes. In policy we have equality, but equality does not mean equity. The cost of getting a child to school is higher for rural and coastal areas often requiring the use of private transport as public transport is not available or not reliable. Social mobility in the South West is poor, students are not progressing to higher education. The lack of infrastructure, large employers and higher qualification jobs is impacting on what young people aspire to or if they return to the area after their degree. The Pretty Poverty report was part of a larger project that came out of conversations with the Cornwall Dioceses. The IDM did not seem to represent what they were seeing in Cornwall or the rural experience. It was part of the Cornwall Rurality Matters project . Went to six selected areas identified using a triangulated approach which avoided the issue of spatial aggregation. The research asked: what is it like to live in an area of Cornwall which is classified as deprived but the IMD and explore the measure that identified that area as deprived and why other similar areas were not being classified as deprived? There is a new index of deprivation which was launched in 2025 the IOD (Index of Deprivation), this new index is not more sensitive to rurality. Some minimal adjustments around housing and transport, but still not enough to recognize rural deprivation. The Community Needs Index - this uses "neighbourhood trust, perceived as a sign of affluence. In the Pretty Poverty report this is represented as community resilience. In rural areas that is not a sign of affluence but a sign of absolute need. You rely on your family, friends and neighbours to access your basic needs due to the lack of things like public transport or digital connectivity. We value statistics more than we value qualitative and narrative data which can really show what it is like to live in a certain place. The Office of National Statistics does not report on areas with 5000 people or less, why is that and what could this mean for policy? It makes small communities invisible in the data. There were six key findings in the Pretty Poverty report: transport dependency, housing displacement, employment precarity, healthcare withdrawal, educational isolation and community resilience. If services are not being used they get reduced, but when they are reduced they are used less, making it a vicious cycle. Transportation is a key barrier to employment, healthcare and education. Two thirds of rural residents live in transport deserts. Healthcare withdrawal - service centralizations are compounding access challenges. People felt that the move to digital access was excluding them from healthcare access due to digital connectivity challenges, this was the feedback from all demographics, from young people to elderly. This move is a very urban-centric policy. Cornwall's connectivity is over 30% worse than other areas of England. Distances were seen as a barrier to specialist care, Cornwall has one hospital and many people travelled to Devon for care. There is a high concentration of special needs children in small schools, 29% compared to the 3% which is the national average. The schools are struggling as they have fewer teachers and less funding than larger or urban schools. Strong social capacity or community resilience is a positive in rural and coastal communities, however we need to recognise that this is a response to disadvantage. If we removed community care we might start to see the need that is underneath this. Community assets should compliment not substitute formal services. The Pretty Poverty Report: https://cornwallreports.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-Pretty-Poverty-Report.pdf Coastal Schools and Educational Isolation: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/education/university-practice-partnerships/research-in-practice/coastal-schools-and-educational-isolation Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health ! Rural Health Compass

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