Maxwell School News and Commentary

"While life expectancy has continued to improve in large highly educated urban hubs, life expectancy declines have been much more pronounced in former industrial cities, much of Appalachia, and in many small towns and cities across America’s heartland," says Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

"There is less access to healthcare overall in rural towns compared to urban areas of the U.S. Many rural parts of the country don’t even have a hospital, much less specialty care like dermatology," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

While the urban opioid crisis is a crisis of heroin and illegal drugs, the rural opioid crisis of prescription drugs is largely a story of growing spatial inequality and of places left behind, most often occurring in places that tend to have a declining industrial base, finds a study co-authored by Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.