• Basic Information
• Additional Info

Basic Information

• Project No. and Title: W4001 : Social, Economic and Environmental Causes and Consequences of Demographic Change in Rural America
• Period Covered: 10/01/2019 to 09/30/2020
• Date of Report: 01/07/2021
• Annual Meeting Dates: 09/18/2020 to 09/18/2020

Participants

See Summary of Minutes

Accomplishments

Impacts

1. Research on rural urban differences in disability and the role of migration reached a broad audience of disability stakeholders and awareness of rural-urban disability differentials, revealed different age-migration curves of persons with and without disability, and highlighted disability as affecting households.
2. Published research on racial residential integration in the US raised awareness and increased knowledge about place-based attributes that promote contexts that might promote positive race relations. The study shows that we must look outside the city to understand cross-racial exposure and contact. Policy implications include stressing the need to consider different types of places and their regional contexts to enhance racial equity. (Objectives 1-2)
3. Published research on the impact of geographic isolation on hindering environmental migration raised awareness and increased knowledge about how proximity changes the likelihood of migrating away from environmentally degrading places. An example of new knowledge generated by this study is that as environmental and associated economic conditions worsen, the likelihood of out-migration from less remote places increases whereas the likelihood decreases among more remote places. Policy implications include considering distance in determining environmentally related migration. (Objective 3)
4. Published research on the ways in which demographic forces can alter local connections to racial histories and subsequent racial economic inequality raised awareness and increase knowledge about how historical forces matter for contemporary conditions. An example of new knowledge generated by this study is that historical white population increase may have helped spread racial inequality through diffusion processes. Policy implications include stressing that while local historical legacies are persistent, they are not permanent, and population trends are a critical force shaping local racial inequality. (Objectives 1-2)
5. Published essay on using geographic data to study questions relevant to environmental sociology raised awareness and increased knowledge about the strategies and challenges for social scientists to contribute to research and policy. The essay helped readers from multiple disciplines and nations understand the current challenges of generating useful research and potential strategies to overcome them, and to set an agenda for researcher to generate studies useful for environmentally informed community planning. (Objective 3)
6. Published research on the declining rate of US internal migration in recent decades raised awareness and increased knowledge about how the connectedness of places influences the pace of migration. An example of new knowledge generated by this study is that counties became more connected to one another by migration over time and this increase in connectivity helped to keep the migration slowdown from slowing further. Policy implications include considering the connections between places to enhance community development programming and planning. (Objective 1)
7. We taught rural residents and community leaders about population forces such as immigration, out-migration of younger people, and aging-in-place including exploration of the implications for community vitality, labor force and economic development, provision of services, and the structural ripple effect on community institutions such as schools and local government. (Objective 1-3)
8. We built the capacity of local government officials, non-profits and community development practitioners in rural counties to access, use and analyze demographic data for program development, resource allocation, decision-making, and service provision. Special emphasis was on connecting local knowledge to data about current and projected rural population trends in the domains of aging, health, changing diversity, and housing. (Objective 1-3)
9. We helped public policy makers, local decision makers, and rural residents understand the changing population of Wisconsin and the associated needs through my outreach activities at the Applied Population Laboratory so that they are adapted to current and projected rural population trends. (Objectives 1-3)
10. We provided timely outreach and education to state agencies, local governments, statewide associations, and community-based organizations about the 2020 Census and highlighted the operational changes, the importance of complete and accurate census counts, and a variety of ways to develop partnerships to encourage participation and increase response rates.
11. We organized and delivered a conference on demographic responses to changes in the natural environment. We brought together local and international scholars at various career stages to share knowledge on the influence of the natural environment on people and places both locally and across the globe. We enhanced knowledge by sharing with conference participants best practices in translating scholarly work in environmental demography for policy and public audiences. (Objective 3)
12. Published research, webinars and interaction with media and state officials raised awareness of the impacts of the COVID-19 on rural America and its higher risk for the older rural population with more pre-existing conditions.
13. Research and policy discussions with staff, legislators, NGOs, public and media provided insights into recent rural demographic change in New Hampshire, New England and the U.S. and the policy challenges the state, region and nation will face in light of these changes.
14. Research on the structural upstream drivers of drug overdose helped increase NIH program officers’ and institute directors’ understanding of the role of “place” in overdose. It included recommendations for research needs that may help influence funding priorities within the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
15. Research on geographic differences in COVID-19 testing and deaths has the potential to inform states’ social distancing policies, resource allocation, testing, and closure and reopening strategies. In particular, esearch briefs in the early stages of the pandemic in the U.S. warned policy makers and the public that, despite lower population density and comparatively low rates of transmission in rural areas early on, COVID-19 could impact rural areas harder due to older age structure and greater prevalence of several chronic health conditions.
16. Through participation on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Rising Midlife Mortality Rates and Socioeconomic Disparities, advocated that their report include detailed trends related to metro status differences in mortality and that various explanations chapters related to opioids, other drugs, and alcohol; suicide; and cardiometabolic diseases include explanations for worsening trends in rural areas. Also included were data recommendations that could influence research funders’ priorities and could influence future data collection strategies to enable better research on rural health and mortality trends.
17. Community outreach activities of an NSF-funded project on responses to forest insect disturbance in North-Central Colorado increased public awareness of the mountain pine beetle outbreak and local residents’ engagement with science and forest management. The project also actively involved undergraduate and graduate students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and contributed to the development of institutional infrastructure for interdisciplinary research on the human dimensions of natural resources.
18. Research on the nationwide distribution of persons with various types of disability raised awareness of and increased knowledge about the links between environmental fit and residential preferences of persons and households with disabilities. Propensities to migrate are utilized to understand whether migration contributes to higher rates of rural disability. Results show only slightly different propensities to stay in rural than urban areas and similar destination choices of people with or without disability, suggesting that migration does little to explain higher rates of rural disability. Noteworthy differences are detected in the age migration schedules for persons with disability, persons without disability in households with disability, and persons without disability in households without disability, with each moving at different stages in the life-cycle. Policy implications include the need to consider the influence of disability on likelihood of migration.
19. Research completed through the community engaged research projects in Rural Geography is being used by VCRD and VCF to identify, fund, and develop targeted projects aimed at enhancing community well-being in four struggling small towns across Vermont.
20. Research on the social and economic factors driving geographic differences in opioid and other drug mortality rates is being used by the USDA Office of Rural Development to develop a national county-level vulnerability index that captures both upstream (e.g., social, economic) and downstream factors (e.g. access to treatment) contributing to substance use disorders in rural America. This index helps policymakers better understand the factors that make rural communities vulnerable or resilient to public health crises.
21. Research on the poverty in the Upper Midwest raised awareness and increased knowledge about the links between economic well-being and regional industrial changes, specifically how the links change over time and are different across places. New knowledge generated by the study shows that places dependent on manufacturing were once more likely to have low numbers of people living in poverty, but are now more likely to have higher numbers of people living in poverty. This is especially the case in places that experienced dramatic losses in manufacturing between 1970 and 2016. Policy implications include stressing the need to consider local and long-run industry conditions when developing anti-poverty and other economic development policies.
22. Outreach activities at Wisconsin’s Applied Population Laboratory helped public policy makers, local decision makers, and rural residents understand the changing population of Wisconsin and associated needs, so that they are adapted to current and projected rural population trends. APL provides training, data consulting, and other forms of direct support and assistance to Extension specialists and county-based educators, and other stakeholders, in addition to collaborative applied research on emerging community and population issues.
23. Research and policy discussions with legislators, public and NGO policy makers provided insights into recent demographic change in New Hampshire and New England and the policy challenges the state and region will face in light of these changes.
24. Research and policy discussions with health care practitioners and administrators in rural Washington raised awareness about inpatient admissions and readmissions related to chronic conditions, and about rural-urban differences in emergency department use for chronic conditions.
25. Work with Congressional staff on a draft bill directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop a national strategy to increase life expectancy – preliminarily titled: “National Strategy to Increase Life Expectancy Act”—could lead to much-needed research on the causes of declining US life expectancy across different geographies (e.g., urban-rural continuum), evaluation of existing federal government efforts to reverse these trends, development of recommend federal policy changes, and projections of life expectancy gains if such changes were to be implemented.
26. Publications and outreach on rural poverty in the U.S. underlined the importance of recognizing the diversity of places, populations, forms, and sources of poverty in nonmetro America and has reached audiences of both researchers and policy analysts.
27. Publications, funded research, and outreach examined the differential impacts of disaster and climate change on different populations and the serious consequences of ignoring gender or failing to conduct intersectional analyses when developing research and policy to address these issues in different contexts. This work is reaching a very broad audience of researchers and practitioners across disciplines, fields of interest, and global location.
28. Developed informational posters in English and Spanish on COVID exposure for agricultural workers in Pennsylvania, to meet needs of agricultural workers unsure of how to protect themselves in the workplace.
29. Developed COVID-19 FAQ for Immigrants in Pennsylvania in response to expressed need from immigrant worker communities in the agricultural and food service sectors for clearer guidance on how the COVID pandemic could affect immigration enforcement activity, pending immigration applications, and work visas.
30. The NIA-funded and W4001-inspired Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA) supported new research on the implications of rural residence for health and health behaviors, cognitive functioning, and opioid use disorder. A published commentary in the American Journal of Public Health drew on INRPHA to set an agenda for needed multi-dimensional and multi-level research on rural-urban and within-rural differences in health disparities; the impacts of health and aging trends; relationships between health, aging and economic well-being; the implications of physical isolation; and the impact of environmental hazards and change.
31. Published research developed and presented new ways of evaluating the empirical quality of labor market area delineations, and then applied these to existing and newly generated delineations. The research was disseminated to the research community and promises to benefit rural social science by showing how different delineations vary significantly in the types of labor markets they represent, thus informing researcher choices between delineations.
32. Published research provided a fifty-year profile of underemployment in rural and urban America, raising awareness about persisting disadvantages among people of color overall and rural African Americans in particular. Relevant to increasing attention to new immigrant destinations in rural and small-town America, this research showed a convergence between rural and urban Hispanics in the risk of underemployment.
33. Published research explored rural-urban variation in the prevalence, nature, and impact of participation in the informal economy as a household economic livelihood strategy, demonstrating greater presence and reliance on informal work in the countryside.
34. Research on changing levels of income inequality within non-metropolitan and metropolitan counties raised awareness about the persistently high levels of inequality in rural U.S communities. It also raised awareness of the convergence in rural and urban inequality levels, which is driven by growing income disparities in urban places.

Publications