Rural Health Services Development Program

Written by admin@pcpierce.com on March 24, 2011. Posted in Rural Health

The mission of the Rural Health Services Development (RHSD) Program is to develop and maintain primary health care services in rural areas; provide financial and technical assistance to primary care clinics; and, coordinate similar programs of the federal government and other State and voluntary agencies.

The RHSD Program awards grants to community-based, private, non-profit, licensed primary health care clinics throughout rural California for the provision of comprehensive primary and preventive health care services.

About one-sixth of California’s population lives in rural areas and is geographically spread throughout most of California. Rural residents are older, poorer, and have dramatically fewer health resources than their urban counterparts. Sparsity of physician distribution, coupled with climatic, topographic, and distance factors, isolates rural residents from accessible and available services.

Utilizing a variety of funding streams, the RHSD Program has successfully assisted rural community clinics in enhancing both primary medical and dental care services, nutrition counseling and health education. The goal is to improve the health status of targeted population groups living in medically underserved rural areas of the state.