Great time at NRHA in Savannah!

We in South Carolina were

delighted that the NHRA annual

meeting was drive-able this year, which allowed us to bring a fairly sizeable contingent. Most of our presentations dealt directly with our focus, rural poor and minority populations.

For the Wednesday State Health Resources Track, Kevin Bennett, Jessica Bellinger

and Jan Probst presented information about cancer screening disparities and the costs of eliminating them. A lively discussion at that session lasted well past the 5:30 “stop time.”

On Thursday’s State Health Resources Track, Kevin and Jessica paired up with Mike Samuels to present different measures that could be used to assess disparities, including the Index of Relative Rurality. Thursday afternoon found Jeff Hatala presenting information about dental service availability for rural children, findings from a survey of school nurses in South Carolina.

At the “Contributed Research Papers” session on Friday, attendance was slim: our investigators and the rest of the team for support, plus the lone non-SCRHRC presenter who showed up. But we turned it into a seminar and had a great discussion. Alexa Gallagher presented on obesity during pregnancy, Jihong Liu on obesity among children, and Nancy Morden of the VA White Junction Rural Resource Center presented on the disparity between the need for bone density screening in men with COPD and the proportion of rural men who actually received the screening. A great learning session!

And while running Friday morning, saw the great track at right, which the docent at the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge ID's as alligator...