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Our article tackles the timely and important issue of the university collaboration aimed at shaping up the sustainable urban areas and contributing to their development through the teaching and research. Universities provided qualified labour force, yield novel research solutions and act as hubs for entrepreneurial activity in urban areas. In this article, we show that even though most of the universities are concentrated in large urban centres and capital regions, many of them are located in small rural areas and have a profound effect on them. We also demonstrate the impact of universities on the sustainable development which is done through the sustainable education as well as the R&D approaches. These effects are very relevant for the co-designing of sustainable rural areas that can follow the principles of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the green policies imposed by the majority of the local and central governments around the world.

There has been minimal compliance with Ghana’s Intestate Succession Act, 1985, (PNDC Law 111) especially by communities in rural areas whose lives are governed almost exclusively by customary law. ...

Although health status in Vietnam has been much improved, people living in rural areas have faced several challenges, including a rapid increase of the aging population, inadequate capacity of health system, and problems of inequities in access to the healthcare system. Objectives: This study aimed to explore the common health problems and health care utilization of people living in the rural areas of Thua Thien Hue province. Methods: A cross-sectional study and geography information system application were carried out. A total of 2.631 individuals in 599 households of a lowland area and a mountainous area was interviewed with a structured questionnaire regarding to health status and health care utilization during the last 6 months. Geography information system software was used to visualize these data of household. Results: 32.8% of participants reported at least an episode of illness within 6 months prior to the interviews. Most of illness people lived in mountainous area. Fever, uncomplicated hypertension, cough, and headache were reported as the most common health problems among participants. Most of participants preferred to visit commune health centers and district hospitals. People in different areas have a significant difference trend from another in choosing health facilities. Conclusion: Residents in difficult-to-reach areas had high prevalence of health problems and experienced social and structural barriers of healthcare services access. It is necessary to improve the availability and quality of primary care services to improve the health status and accessibility of disadvantaged people. Keywords: primary care, utilization, rural areas, health care acessibility

This mini review brings to bear a situation that occurred in the rural areas of West Africa where the inhabitants accused others of being responsible for the loss of their genitals. The town of reference is Zorse, which is inhabited by the Kusasi tribe in the North Eastern part of Ghana. Anthropologists and psychologists explain anxiety assault as a fear reaction that emanates from a people’s belief that a person can cause sex organs to vanish or shrink. Charles Mather used ethnography to describe detailed accounts of happenings. This current paper provides a systematic review of happenings based on the information gathered from the script of Mather. It is revealed that the explanations offered are also grounded in bioengineering and psychology.

Background Shortages and maldistribution of nurses remain significant problems in many countries. Having appropriate intervention strategies to retain nurses in underserved areas, where they are most needed, are crucial for health system strengthening. This study aimed to quantify attitudes to working in rural areas, perceived competencies, and intention to work among final-year nursing students, and to analyze the associations between those factors and their background characteristics across five countries in the Asia-Pacific Network for Health Professional Education Reforms (ANHER), namely Bangladesh, China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam. Methods A descriptive comparative cross-sectional survey was conducted between July 2012 and July 2013, using a self-administered questionnaire to assess students’ attitudes towards working in rural areas, their perceived competencies, and their intended job choices. A total of 10,169 final-year nursing students in five countries were selected. Bivariate models were constructed to compare students’ characteristics. Statistically significant variables were further analyzed using multivariate models. Results Most nursing students in five countries had rural backgrounds. Students in India (67.1%) and Thailand (65.1%) held more positive attitudes towards working in rural areas. Students in Bangladesh (78.8%) and India (62.6%) believed that their schools prepared them well, and inspired them, to work in rural areas. The ‘Lifelong learning’ competency was ranked highest by students in all five countries, ranging from 76.2 to 91.7%. Their perceived competencies were significantly related to their background of having graduated from rural high schools and being admitted to study through rural recruitment. Rural upbringing and rural recruitment were significantly associated with more positive attitudes towards rural areas (p-value < 0.5). A majority of students in China (83.8%), Thailand (67.7%) and Vietnam (86.5%) intended to work in the public sector immediately after graduation. Conclusions These findings from five Asian countries confirm that nursing students with rural upbringing and recruitment had more positive attitudes toward rural areas and were more likely to choose working in rural areas after graduation. This study provides additional evidence from country implementation to support the value of WHO recommendations of effective strategies to address issues of rural retention by focusing on the recruitment of students with a rural background.

Management training is widely agreed to be important for improvement of business practices and performance of enterprises. This study shows that specific training in Kaizen management improves Kaizen management practices of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the rural area of Vietnam. The study reveals that Kaizen management training can be conducted through local trainers’ training. Good management practices spill over to other enterprises through their dense social networks. As a result, the provision of Kaizen management training can be spread out.

Aim: Diabetes has been identified to cause prolonged ill health in many people living in rural communities in Ghana where access to health care delivery appears to be inadequate and of low quality due to financial constraints, limited health resources, poor road network, low literacy levels and limited access to specialist care. Individuals diagnosed with diabetes often express varied psychological and emotional imbalances. Therefore, immediate psychosocial care is needed to prevent patients living in rural areas from getting into severe depression mode and other mental health complications. Yet, understanding how people diagnosed with diabetes should react in order to prevent severe psychological implications has not been adequately explored in Ghana. This study explored the lived experiences of diabetes patients living in rural areas of the Eastern Region of Ghana with the aim of discovering the forces that determine appropriate psychosocial care for patients. Study Design: Using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), 31 diabetes patients were purposively selected from four hospitals in the region, and interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide to investigate participants’ perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences about the disease and how the participants own experiences could be used to construct a framework of immediate care applicable in their own social certain. Results: The study generated themes along productive and unproductive lines to demonstrate the lived experiences of diabetes patients. Psycho-emotional reactions, psychological shock and emotional outbursts constitute unproductive forces. This caused some of the patients to express suicidal ideations at the extreme point. On the other hand, individual resilience and disposition, guidance and support from care providers, family and community members constitute the productive forces that provide an appropriate framework for psychosocial care for diabetes patients. Conclusion: The study has shown the need to adequately address the psychological and emotional needs of diabetes patients to prevent extreme forms of psychological distress (anxiety and depression). The authors, therefore, recommend an integrated care model for diabetes patients’ in rural areas that encompass a psychosocial therapy built around the primary healthcare concept with the establishment of counseling units in all Primary Health Care facilities. This will offer a platform to generate personal and community actions and decisions to adequately address the immediate psychological and emotional needs of diabetes patients in rural areas.

AbstractRural areas tend to not be perceived as particularly innovative areas, in spite of a growing diversity of rural economies related to new activities and new types of innovation which rely largely on a (re)discovery and reconfiguration of rural resources. The aims of this paper are two fold. First it introduces a comprehensive typology of traditional and “new” rural resources, showing relevance for the development of innovation in rural areas, built on a systematic literature review; then it uses this typology to underpin an analysis of empirical data on innovations introduced by organizations located in the Portuguese rural areas. This analysis allows identification of the categories of resources that do contribute the most to rural innovations and to group rural innovative organizations according to the patterns of rural (and non‐rural) resources they use to innovate. The identified innovation clusters highlight the importance of the “new” rural resources, such as “natural and cultural amenities” and “traditions,” as well as the “rural populations” themselves and their “territories and settlements,” both at organizational and territorial levels. The paper contributes for a better understanding of what are the key rural resources to shape the rural areas innovation dynamics and to identify the innovation patterns built on different rural resources. Its findings show very helpful to the design of innovation policies and the territorial smart specialization agendas meant to address the rural areas, that have been so far neglected in this matter.

By using household data from 2004, this paper identifies the determinants of the elderly poverty in Vietnam. We find that urban and rural elderly are substantially different, and thus they should be analyzed separately. The results for urban elderly generally show that higher ages, marital status, residential regions, and working status have significant impacts on the likelihood of poverty. In rural areas, higher ages, gender, marital status, ethnicity, residential regions, household composition, and household size are determinant factors of the likelihood of poverty for the elderly. Moreover, remittances and social security benefits appear to be important for reducing poverty of the elderly households, particularly in the rural areas. We also found some factors which are less important for both areas, including characteristics of household heads. Based on these findings, we formulate policy priorities, including reducing regional disparities, promoting the rural economy, and reforming the social security system.