The Rural Health Office at The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health was recently selected to participate in a network that brings together groups from different sectors to better address issues faced by communities in the rural Southwest. Funded by a five-year, $100,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Office will join nine other organizations in Arizona and New Mexico to participate in the  “Rural People, Rural Policy” initiative.

“This initiative energizes and equips rural organizations and networks to shape policy that will improve the vitality of rural communities and the lives of the residents,” notes Joyce A. Hospodar, senior program coordinator at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health and principal investigator on the grant. “The goal of the effort is to give voice to these rural issues on a national level and to develop the knowledge, capacity, strategic direction, and action of a critical mass of organizations that seek to improve policy that affects people and places in rural America.”

“Working with the diverse organizations that are in the Rural People, Rural Policy's Southwest Network gives us an opportunity to practice a global approach to understanding and shaping policies that affect rural Arizona and New Mexico,” adds Jennifer S. Peters, coordinator for Community Health Promotion at the College and co-investigator. “Each time we meet, we can see the interdependence between public health, environmental justice and sustainable economic development issues.”

The Rural People, Rural Policy initiative is being funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation over five years to establish five rural policy networks located in Central Appalachia (West Virginia, Appalachian counties of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Maryland and Virginia), the Mid South (Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana), the Midwest/Great Plains (Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana), the Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico) and an At-Large network (organizations outside the other regions).

Now in its second year, Rural People, Rural Policy selects a cohort of up to 25 organizations every year, with five organizations joining each of the five Rural Policy Networks. By the fifth year of the Initiative (2012), each network will have a group of 25 organizations equipped and actively working to improve rural policy.

In addition to the Rural Health Office, the two other Arizona organizations selected to join the Southwest network this year are Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, Tucson, and the Nogales Community Development Corporation. The Arizona organizations selected for the first cohort include: Arizona Rural Development Council, DNA-People’s Legal Services, and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance.

The next step for the network is to bring together all of the organizations in several forums to identify and prioritize policy issues affecting rural communities locally, regionally, and nationally. A priority established by the first cohort was the effect of predatory lending practices on the lives of individuals and families living in rural Arizona and New Mexico.