It’s sometimes difficult to quantify the impact and importance of health in rural America.  Sure, one could use traditional percentages, calculations and data, but the true measure of impact often lies in people’s stories.  It is the elderly woman who is able to have dialysis treatments in her rural hometown, avoiding costly and difficult travel to the city.  It is the reflective fifth-grader who wants to be a doctor when he grows up because he was inspired by a science event sponsored by medical students.

Driven by the stories of the people it serves, a small North Dakota organization on the fourth floor of a nondescript university building ended up becoming a major piston in the engine which impacts 25 percent of people in the United States:  rural health care.

The Center for Rural Health, at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences, with its straightforward focus on improving health for people in rural communities, “has challenged the country to pay attention,” said H. David Wilson, MD, dean of the UND medical school.  “Their efforts to ensure that people in rural areas have access to quality and affordable health care are shining a spotlight on the state in a major way.”

For most of its 28 years, the Center has worked quietly on addressing a variety of rural health issues, both in North Dakota and across the United States.  Now, armed with an arsenal of major new projects on national, state and local levels, the Center is not only making strides at home, but all across the country, and with the nation’s spotlight tracking their every move.

The Center for Rural Health probably isn’t a household name to most folks in North Dakota outside of the health care field.  Yet nationwide, the Center constitutes a rural health all-star team.  “The depth and breadth of the Center’s rural health impact is unique in the country,” said Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND).  “UND’s Center for Rural Health is truly a model for rural health in the nation.”