Podcast

Welcome to the Rural Road to Health Podcast!

Here we will travel along the rural road to health through conversations with students, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, advocates; people that live and work in rural areas around the world. Through these conversations we will try to gain insights into the current state of affairs in rural health globally and explore ideas that could help us move towards better access to health services for all communities.

Dr Daniel James – Rural Minds: Farmers' Mental Health – Rural Road to Health

Dr Daniel James is a rural GP in Suffolk and one of the creators of the Rural Minds Project. Episode summary: 00.59 Daniel tells us about his professional background and how he became interested rural health 03.03 What is the Rural Minds Project? 06.08 How did different collaborators come together to work on the project? 08.15 What were they hoping to achieve with the Rural Minds project? 11.30 What do we know about farmers' mental health? What are some key facts we should know? 16.10 Why did they decide to use virtual reality and how is it being used? 19.15 What is the scenario like and how long does it take to go through it? 23.00 What challenges have there been during development? 25.45 What feedback have they received on the project? 27.00 Where does he see the project going in the future? Key messages: There are hidden risks in rural populations that are not explored at medical school. Rural Minds is an education project that uses immersive virtual reality to help medical professionals understand farming life and the mental health challenges of farmers. The project draws on real life experiences. There are increased risks of mental health issues and suicide within farming communites. They collaborated with the farming community to film scenarios and develop the project which helped to keep scenarios realistic. The first goal was to develop a tool for clinicians to help them develop an understanding of the suicide and mental health risks among farmers. They have had conversations with the RCGP and NHS England as well as an opportunity to launch the project in the House of Lords, all groups have been supportive and hopefully this leads to national impact. The farmers wanted a similar farmer facing resource to help farmers understand their risks and where they can seek help. The project has also developed a farmer facing version. ONS 2016 suggests a two fold risk of suicide among farmers. Data collection stops at 65 and many farmers are over this age, so the data likely underestimates the risk. RABI report 2023 shows 36% of UK farmers are depressed, 47% have ongoing anxiety and only 1 in 10 reported having good mental health. Virtual reality allows you to place people inside the environment rather than just describing it, you are immersed in the sights and sounds of a farm. People remember the lesson better after a VR simulation than following a lecture. They have created a web version of the scenario which can be streamed on a computer or mobile phone which makes it accessible to those without a VR headset. Available for free. Find out more about the project here: http://www.ruralminds.org.uk/ Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health! Rural Health Compass

Diversity in Rural Health Leadership

Dr Sarah Lesperance and Dr Sarah Chalmers speak about their work exploring the leadership journeys of diverse medical leaders following their workshop at the 21st WONCA World Rural Health conference. They invite listeners to share their leadership stories to support their research.

Available 30th May 2026.

Rural WONCA GRACE Initiative

This is the first of three episodes recorded during the 21st WONCA World Rural Health Conference. This episode is an introduction to GRACE – Global Rural Health Action, Collaboration and Excellence. You will here from GRACE partners about why they have joined the initiative and what they hope it will achieve.

Available 20th May 2026.

Rural Minds: Farmers’ Mental Health

Dr Daniel James is a rural GP based in Suffolk, England. As one of the creators of the Rural Minds project, he speaks about how they are using immersive virtual reality to help medical professionals understand farming life and the mental health challenges of farmers.

Available 10th May 2026.

Sustainable Communities Lampeter

Mari Thomas is Research and Development Officer at Rural Health and Care Wales. We talk about the Sustainable Communities Lampeter project. This project focuses on building community resilience by using existing community assets. Mari shares key lessons from the project.

Available 30th April 2026.

Long Way Home: Education & Community Transformation

Matt Paneitz is the Executive Director of Long Way Home, an organization which works on sustainable education and community transformation. He shares his experience of working with an Indigenous community in Guatemala on improving access to education and using waste in innovative ways.

Available 20th April 2026.

Rural Health Equity Chat & Call to Action

Find out more about the work of Rural Health Compass and the recently published report on the Rural Health Equity Chats. Discussions with this online community have identified the need for community-led policy solutions and a rural health equity strategy.

Available 10th April 2026.

Dementia Friendly Ceredigion

Michelle Symes, Research and Development Officer at Rural Health and Care Wales, talks about the project they worked on which focuses on addressing the needs of people with dementia. One of the innovative case studies being shared this season focusing on local implementation.

Available 30th March 2026.

Transforming Rural Health in Ireland

Prof Liam Glynn & Prof Peter Hayes talk about the journey of improving rural healthcare access in Ireland over the past 20 years. From the “No doctor, no village” campaign to the Rural WONCA conference and the Limerick Declaration on Rural Health.

Available 20th March 2026.

Rural Proofing: Through the Looking Glass

Betty-Ann Bryce is a Senior Policy Analyst and Rural Policy Expert at the OECD. We take a deep-dive into the rural proofing process. What it is, the importance of “rural intelligence” and why we should think about the “rural proofer”.

Available 10th March 2026.

Welcome to Season 4!

Bringing you new episodes to expand your understanding of rural health, rural health equity, and rural policy advocacy.

Available 20th February 2026.

Profs Sarah & Roger Strasser are a trailblazing couple in rural health, rural health education and rural health research.

They share their experiences and perspectives on their rural health careers, involvement in medical education and rural health research.

Available 20th June 2025.

Prof Bill Ventres is a family physician, medical anthropologist and (recently retired) Distinguished Chair of Rural Family Medicine at the University of Arkansas in the USA.

He shares the insights he has gained over his career on working with people at the margins, the storylines of family medicine and solutions for rural workforce development.

Available 10th June 2025.

Heather Sherriffs & Dan Martin are medical students on the ScotGEM training pathway.

They share their experience of graduate entry medical training in Scotland, their placement on the Orkney Islands and how this is shaping their thoughts about their future careers.

Available 30th May 2025.

Dr Iva Petricusic is a rural family doctor form Croatia. She is the vice chair of the young doctor committee of the Croatian Medical Chamber and a coordinating member of EUROPREV.

She talks about her experience working as a rural family doctor in Slavonia and what has been done to improve recruitment and retention in rural and island communities.

Available 20th May 2025.

Prof Bruce Chater is a rural generalist, Head of the Mayne Academy of Rural and Remote Medicine Clinical Unit in Queensland, Australia, and the Chair of Rural WONCA.

He talks about the experience of working in the same town for 40 year, as well as his contribution to rural medicine in Australia and internationally through advocacy and development of rural medical education.

Available 10th May 2025.

Ashley Lambert is a medical student from the University of Swansea in Wales who is currently on the Rural Health in Medical Education track (RHiME).

She talks about her experience on rural placement and how this is shaping her views on her future career.

Available 30th April 2025.

Dr Jane George is a health workforce consultant and academic from New Zealand, specialising in rural workforce and the Allied Health, Scientific, and Technical professions.

She talks about her research into recruitment and retention of allied health professionals in rural areas.

Available 20th April 2025.

A/Prof Malin Fors is a psychotherapist, author and Associate Professor at the Arctic University in Norway.

She talks about her research into power dynamics and intersectionality in rural areas and we discuss the concept of “potato ethics” and “geographical narcissism”.

Available 10th April 2025.

Satu Pirskanen is a Project Manager at the Savonia University of Applied Sciences in Finland.
She talks about rural health in Finland and the Attraction in Elderly Care Project.

Available 30th March 2025.

The team of the Virtual Health Hub in Saskatchewan, Canada: Dr Ivar Mendez, Dr John Michael Stevens, Dr Victoria Sparrow-Downes and Joey Deason. They tell us about how they are integrating virtual care and technology into rural health services in Canada.

Available 20th March 2025.

Professor Janessa Graves is the Director of the WWAMI Rural Health Research Centre at the University of Washington. She tells us about rural health research in the USA.

Available 10th March 2025.

Dr Bethan Setphens, a GP and Director of Community Learning and Dr Katie Webb, a psychologist, and a Professor of Medical Education at Cardiff University, tell us about Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships in Wales and the upcoming CLIC conference.

Available 28th February 2025.

Professor Karen Flegg is a rural general practitioner and academic from Australia. She is also the current president of WONCA, the world organization of family doctors. We talk about leadership and rural health.

Available 20th February 2025.

Dr Chris Rice is a qualified paramedic and Associate Head of Postgraduate Medicine at Edge Hill University in Lancashire. We discuss his doctoral thesis which explored the recruitment and retention of nurses staff across northern Scotland’s non doctor islands.

Available 10th February 2025.

Susanne Tegen is the CEO of the National Rural Health Alliance in Australia.

She shares her experiences of living in rural Australia, and talks about the work of NRHA and how they have become a leading voice in advocating for rural communities and rural health.

Available 30th January 2025.

Welcome to Season 3 of the Rural Road to Health!

Find out what we will be talking about this season.

Episodes will be released on the 10th, 20th and 30th of each month between January and August 2025.

Available 20th January 2025.

Season 2 Wrap Up

Highlights from the second season of the Rural Road to Health Podcast. Learn what is planned for season 3.

Available 10th December 2024.

Tony Joy is the founder of Durian, an NGO focused on empowering rural women to become self-sufficient by providing them with the knowledge and skills needed to transform their local waste into a means of livelihood.

Available 20th November 2024.

Sadie Lavelle Cafferkey is a registered nurse working on in the Republic of Ireland. She is currently doing a PhD with Trinity College Dublin. Her project is looking at developing integrated nurse led addiction services for rural communities.

Available 10th November 2024.

Dr Juan Barranco is a rural family doctor in Andalucía, Spain. He will talk about rural medicine in Spain, the rural section in SemFYC and the upcoming rural forum.

Available 30th October 2024.

Prof. Jean Ross is a professor of nursing at Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand. She is a member of the Global Rural Nursing Exchange Network leadership team.

She talks about rural nursing in New Zealand and about the development of GRNEN.

Available 20th October 2024.

Gréanne Leeftink is an assistant professor within the department Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems, in the CHOIR research centre at the University of Twente. Her research focus is on healthcare process optimization, using Operations Management/Operations Research techniques.

We explore how mathematical models can be used in rural healthcare settings.

Available 10th October 2024.

Cristobal Escalona is director at Balloon Lab at Balloon Latam, a social enterprise supporting rural innovation and sustainable development in rural areas of Chile.

We talk about how social entrepreneurship can build social capital, and how they have found a way to measure intangible assets in the community by developing a community resilience index.

Available 20th September 2024.

Dr Anette Fosse is a rural GP and the director of the Norwegian Centre for Rural Medicine. We talk about rural primary care in Norway, research on rural medical education and rural locums.

Available 10th September 2024.

Dr Rebecca Orr is an academic GP from Northern Ireland who focuses on farmers’ health. She is also the Chair of the Agri Rural Health Forum in Northern Ireland.

We talk about farmers’ health and the research that she has been doing in collaboration with farmers on health behaviours and cardiometabolic disease.

Available 30th August 2024.

Melanie Costas is the founder and CEO of Rural Mental Health Matters, a social enterprise focused on tackling mental and physical health inequality in rural England and Wales. We talk about the challenges faced by rural communities when it comes to mental health and disability and possible solutions for addressing them.

Available 20th August 2024.

Dr Miriam and Malachy Dolan run a social farm in Northern Ireland. They share their experiences with social farming and how social farming can benefit rural communities and farmers.

Available 10th August 2024.

Catriona Crawford is a therapeutic radiographer by training, she is working with the Farming Community Network in Northern Ireland on the Rural Communities Cancer Project. This project partners with Macmillan Cancer Support to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer, the need for screening, and support that is available following a cancer diagnosis.

Available 20th July 2024.

13th EURIPA Rural Health Forum Highlights

Lincoln Institute for Rural and Coastal Health

EURIPA Lincoln Statement 2024

European Rural Health Academic Network

Available 10th July 2024.