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Rural Aging: The Geographic Reach Of Service Access In Utah, Identifying Barriers And Solutions, Alexandra T. Schiwal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation includes two studies of rural age-related services in the state of Utah. The first study combines geospatial, demographic data (number of people over 55) and age-related services (hospitals, hospice providers, nursing homes, senior centers, and Areas Agencies on Aging) at the county level and census-tract level to determine localized differences in proportional access to age-related services. Higher and lower proportions are then predicted by contextual factors including rural/urban gradient, economic industry, and broadband access. Results demonstrate that broadband access was significantly associated with higher access to age-related services, but being a retirement destination (increase in people over 65 …

Health Care Provider Recruitment And Retention In Millard County, Utah, Ronald T. Draper

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Millard County, Utah, rural and sparsely populated, continues to experience challenges in recruiting and retaining primary health care providers. My study addressed the lack of a rigorous and systemic analysis of this problem by collecting and analyzing data from a series of semi-structured interviews conducted between January and March 2019. These interviews were with nineteen of the twenty-four known health care providers who began practice in the county from the mid1980s to 2018, as well as with four administrators.

The study, taking advantage of this comprehensive analysis, provided a more extensive understanding of the root causes underlying the recruitment and …