Category: Uncategorized

Rural youth and young adults have historically had higher use rates of alcohol and other substances than their urban counterparts. Recent research suggests that rates of youth and young adult alcohol and other substance use have declined over the past two decades, but we have limited knowledge of whether and how current rural and urban…

Substance use is a significant public health issue in rural communities. In particular, the opioid epidemic continues to have a devastating impact in rural areas disproportionately affected by a lack of infrastructure to provide treatment for substance and opioid use disorders. Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), often the hubs of local systems of care, can play…

OBJECTIVE: To estimate treatment and postpartum health care utilization among pregnant persons with opioid use disorder (OUD) in Vermont and Maine. METHODS: Vermont’s and Maine’s All Payer Claims Databases were used to identify deliveries 2010 to 2018 that were paid for, in part, by Medicaid. OUD was identified among pregnant persons if they had any…

Increased rates of acute opioid poisoning and related emergency department (ED) visits in the United States have occurred at the same time as rural EDs face a number of resource constraints. Researchers at the Maine Rural Health Research Center conducted this study to gain insight about rural ED visits for acute opioid poisoning and how…

This chapter provides an overview of the challenges rural areas face in providing mental health services, particularly to older adults. The authors posits several service delivery models and alternatives to improve rural mental health access and quality for older adults. These models include telemedicine referral models and task-sharing models that address shortages of rural specialty…

Researchers at the Maine Rural Health Research Center, University of Southern Maine examined whether the use of electronic health records by rural primary care physicians facilitates their use of best practices in addressing tobacco dependence. The study used the National Ambulatory Medicare Care Survey (2012-2015) to explore how rurality and use of tobacco-related electronic health…

This article captures the perspectives of individuals in recovery from opioid use disorder (OUD) residing in largely rural areas of Maine regarding the impact of stigma on their ability to access treatment services for OUD and maintain recovery. The authors conducted a content analysis of ten focus group sessions, which included two cohorts of postpartum…

[Jounral Abstract] OBJECTIVE: To estimate trends in maternal opioid use disorder (OUD) and neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in Maine using the most recent data available. STUDY DESIGN: We used hospital discharge data to estimate the annual prevalence of maternal OUD and NAS between 2016 and 2022. In addition, we used birth certificate-linked Medicaid data to…

The authors examined 2019–2020 Medicare claims data to compare rural versus urban patterns of change in telemental health use during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors found that telemental health mitigated barriers to mental health services during the pandemic, but were disproportionately beneficial to urban residents. They conclude that to avoid reinforcing existing mental health service…