Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2014 8:30 pm
By Chris Collins and Karen McNeil-Miller/Guest columnists
North Carolina is known for many things. College basketball, the Research Triangle Park, textiles, tobacco, barbeque, the list goes on. In recent years, North Carolina has received even more recognition, thanks to cities like Raleigh, which was recently ranked first on the Forbes annual list of Best Places for Business and Careers 2014, and Charlotte, which has become a banking hub and ranked 12th on the same list.
But there’s much more that lies between the bounds of the Outer Banks and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Numerous rural communities make North Carolina the great state it is today. One in five North Carolinians, almost 2.2 million people, live in 60 rural counties. In comparison to thriving cities like Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina’s rural communities – many of which were once the economic drivers of our state thanks to the booming manufacturing, tobacco and textile industries – are now often lagging behind.
On average, people living in rural communities have poorer health than those living in urban areas, in part because they are less likely to have access to health services, more likely to engage in risky health behaviors and have historic patterns of racial and class discrimination. These communities also have a higher mortality rate on average. Unfortunately, North Carolina’s health disparities go far beyond health care. Rural North Carolina communities consistently have higher unemployment rates when compared to urban communities and more rural residents live below the federal poverty level.