How can health and social services providers work together to help rural women?
Women in rural communities often face barriers such as lack of insurance, limited education, geographical obstacles, and health provider shortages. These can seriously impede accessibility to basic social and health care services that are necessary. Because rural woman are often the sole caretakers of their children, poverty affects them adversely, and in effect, ends up having a huge impact on the well-being and health of the entire family.
Health and social service providers can work together to help make their services as accessible as possible to rural women and their families. They should make basic and preventative health care and comprehensive reproductive care as affordable as possible, regardless of income. For native women or women who face cultural, language or racial barriers in rural areas, social service providers should work in conjunction to reach out to those populations specifically to help advocate for health care and other services.
The strong relationship between adequate income, sufficient food, strong social networks and good health necessitates coordination among various health care and social service agencies. This coordination is especially important in rural communities, where services and providers are limited in numbers. In many rural communities, service providers often make alliances with one another and exhibit extraordinary resourcefulness and resilience. This is also a concern for women as they are often either the sole providers for their family or in charge of accessing health and social services for their children.
