Lessons in Community Care From the American Midwest

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Caring for Older Adults in Rural America

In a three-part series from NPR and supported by the Pulitzer Center, photographer Tim Evans and journalist Juliana Kim explore the challenges facing older adults living in rural areas. Striking images and reports from the American heartland explore the problems affecting farmers and other seniors’ health care. As a generation ages, the towns and communities where seniors built their lives and their families are dwindling, and the problems of aging in isolation start to brew. 

Focusing on older adults in remote areas of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, Evans and Kim give us a glimpse into how communities are stepping up to support seniors. Two of the most significant hurdles faced by older adults are access to health care and loneliness. Often compromised by their locations' remoteness, the struggle for proper care remains a frequent challenge. Coupled with the health care hurdles, older adults who live alone in rural areas feel immense loneliness with few opportunities to gather, and many move away from their towns to find community. 

In Glen Ullin, North Dakota, the community has stepped up to support its aging residents, including with a staffed volunteer EMT service to mitigate the town's lack of health care access. The local priest visits private homes and nursing homes to help keep residents connected to their faith. Strengthening the care services provided in the town allows many older adults to maintain their quality of life.

Aging farmers also struggle with the mounting cost of long-term care and nursing homes. After living frugally over decades, most don’t have the funds to pay for the health care they might need.

The challenges in rural health care in remote areas are also felt by health care providers who have to meet the demands of many. Often short-staffed and under-resourced, health care providers in rural America are serving not just one community, but many others.

We encourage you to explore the reporting project Caring for Seniors in Rural America, and dive deeper into our other global health reporting by clicking here.

Best,

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Impact

On August, 2024, the Pulitzer Center and the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo led a seminar on racial disparities in maternal mortality in Brazil. The event was hosted by Pulitzer Center grantee Cláudia Collucci. It followed the publication of her Pulitzer Center-supported project, The Tragedy of Maternal Mortality in Brazil, which investigated Brazil’s rising maternal mortality rate. It increased by 89.3% during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A month after the seminar, Brazil’s Ministry of Health launched a new version of an initiative aimed at reducing the maternal mortality for Black women by 50% by 2027. The new model is called Rede Alyne, in honor of Alyne Pimentel, a pregnant Brazilian woman whose death in 2002 was blamed on a lack of adequate care. The Rede Alyne initiative aims to distribute resources more equitably and reduce regional and racial inequalities with a new funding model.

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This message first appeared in the October 4, 2024, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter. Subscribe today.

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