How Health Promotion Activities for Rural Populations Differ the Urban

Health promotions for populations living in the rural areas usually differ from the promotional activities targeting the urban populations in many ways. For instance, there are few healthcare providers in the rural areas as compared to the number existing in the urban areas. This means that it may take time for the information from the health care providers to reach the rural populations because of accessibility problems, given that public transport is not available in most rural areas. There are also fewer physicians in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas. This, therefore, encourages telemedicine health promotional services to advise patients in the far rural areas. Equally, people in rural areas often postpone their visits to the few healthcare providers and lack adequate facilities in the health care centers. Most rural populations may have no access to television and the Internet where they can seek information unlike their urban counterparts.

In the rural areas, community nursing is the major health promotional method that is effective in giving personalized services to the sick. This is ideal since most rural patients with chronic illnesses rarely go to the hospitals or may not know how to manage chronic conditions. Other than personalized training of the patients on how to prevent and manage certain illnesses, the use of open air training in the community social forums is an ideal health promotional activity (Gamm, Castillo & Williand, 2010). Health promotion for the urban populations may only require mass media, and Internet platforms which are highly accessible in the urban areas.

Rural populations also have low income as compared to the urban populations. This is caused by the fact that most of rural dwellers are elderly people with lower wages who depend mostly on the small businesses and agricultural enterprises. For this reason, most rural populations are not insured, thus, they are likely not to seek medical services in good time. This makes their conditions more serious and chronic. Community based intervention is, therefore, widely used in promotion health care (Gamm, Castillo & Williand, 2010).

The posting by classmate one is true in some cases based on the rural set up. It is significant to note that there is a difference in environmental conditions and different economic activities taking place in the rural areas and those in urban places. Rural activities include mining, agricultural activities and the use of heavy machinery that result into more injuries, noisy environment, overworking, more exposure to chemicals and dust, especially for the miners. These conditions increase the chances of respiratory and chest infections, chemical poisoning and a loss of hearing ability. Contrary to the observation of classmate one, in my community, rural populations have access to fresh vegetables and fruits directly from farms, which leads to a balanced diet. This gives an advantage over the low income earners in the urban areas and results to a lower number of cases of obese.

The life experience of Damarys in Sebring, Florida, is common to most people brought up in the rural areas. Unlike the parents and other family members in the urban areas, the family members in the rural areas are always available on a daily basis because of the flexible working schedules. This gives rural people a possibility to have quality family time every day while in urban families children are left for domestic workers. With the low population of Sebring, it is easy for families to know each other. This was not possible in the highly populated urban areas like Miami where I grew up. Though I also had family time on Sundays, it was only on Sundays which was inadequate. In as much as Damarys has not been well exposed to the modern opportunities, it is agreed that life in most parts of the rural areas present lower health risks than the life in polluted urban areas where junk food and crime flourish.