University of Kentucky Ranks Among Top Institutions Nationally in Rural Health Research
"Who produces and funds rural health research?"
The below piece was written by Ty Borders, PhD and Julia Cecil, MA, MBA and was published in the Journal of Rural Health. Dr. Borders is a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing and is director of the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center at UK.
In this editorial, we report on the universities/institutions contributing the most papers as well as the institutes/agencies funding the most papers in the field of rural health research, whether they are published in the JRH or another outlet.
Universities/Institutions Producing the Most Papers on U.S. Rural Health, 2020-2021
To determine which universities/institutions produced the most research on rural health in the U.S, we conducted a search of the Web of Science Core Collection (all editions) database. Choosing Documents, we searched by these topics: rural NEAR/2 health or non-metropolitan NEAR/2 health or nonmetropolitan NEAR/2 health. This search yielded 13,397 results. We refined our search to include publication years 2020 and 2021, all document types except book reviews and corrections, all Web of Science categories, and all research areas. This yielded 2,417 results. We then further refined our search to include U.S. only and English language only, which returned 995 results.
Our Web of Science search produced a list of “Top Affiliations” for authors of the resulting papers. Because our aim was to look at rural health research in the U.S., we examined the list of papers for each affiliation/institution and subtracted those not focused on the U.S. Sixteen institutions produced 15 or more papers on U.S. rural health during 2020-2021, accounting for 388 of the 995 papers (39%).
Table 1. Universities/Institutions Producing >15 Papers on U.S. Rural Health, 2020-2021
Institution, Number of Papers
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 45
Harvard U., 33
U. of Washington-Seattle, 30
U. of Kentucky, 28
U. of Iowa, 28
U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 27
U. of South Carolina-Columbia, 27
CDC, 25
Johns Hopkins U., 25
U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 20
West Virginia U., 20
U. of Florida, 19
Yale U., 16
Ohio State U., 15
Oregon Health Science U., 15
Pennsylvania State U., 15
Funders of Most Papers on U.S. Rural Health, 2020-2021
For our 995 results, we examined the “Funding Sources” provided by Web of Science. The largest funder was the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with 268 papers (27%). Under HHS, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded 218 papers from its various agencies (22%). Table 2 below shows all funding sources that provided funding for more than 5 papers.
Table 2. Top 10 Institutes/Agencies Funding U.S. Rural Health Research Papers, 2020-2021
Funder, Number of Papers
National Cancer Institute, 43
CDC, 32
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, 27
Health Resources and Services Administration (excluding FORHP), 22
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 24
National Institute of General Medical Sciences, 21
National Institute on Aging, 19
National Institute on Drug Abuse, 19
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ,16
National Institute of Mental Health, 15
US Department of Agriculture, 14
Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD, 14
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 12
National Inst on Minority Health and Health Disparities, 12
Natl. Inst. of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 9
HRSA Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP), 8
National Science Foundation, 7
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 6
Closing Comments
In this editorial, we have highlighted the universities/institutions and funders contributing to the field of rural health research. Sixteen universities/institutions accounted for 39% of papers published in the field of rural health. The NIH funded 22% of all papers published in the field, which is not surprising given that the NIH has a large budget relative to other funders. On the one hand, one may argue that rural health research activities and funding are concentrated among a relatively small number of universities/institutions and institutes/agencies, respectively. On the other hand, a sizeable proportion of papers are published by authors from a much broader array of organizations; and papers are supported by a rather broad array of external fundings sources, or not external funding at all.
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Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
The Rural & Underserved Health Research Center (RUHRC), which focuses on issues at the intersection of rurality and poverty. RUHRC research focuses on subjects including but not limited to access to health care, substance use disorder and treatment, mental illness and treatment, and cancer. RUHRC researchers are multidisciplinary, with faculty from the UK Colleges of Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Communication and Information as well as the American Board of Family Medicine.
