Publications
July 5, 2018
This policy brief explains that people who live in rural America rely more heavily on the federal Food Stamp Program than do residents of urban areas. The brief presents a demographic picture of rural food stamp recipients, including information on income, race, age, and family size. It also compares data for rural and urban recipients.
June 19, 2018
Over the last two decades, opioid overdose deaths have increased over 400 percent, reaching 45,838 in 2016. Although the crisis is not disproportionately worse in rural than in urban America, opioid mortality rates have grown faster in rural areas, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. Rural areas also face unique challenges in dealing with the crisis, including a smaller health care…
June 5, 2018
Hidden in the shadows of New Hampshire’s opioid epidemic are the children who live with their parents’ addiction every day. They fall behind in school as the trouble at home starts to dominate their lives, they make the 911 calls, they are shuttled about to live with relatives or in foster care, and they face an uncertain future when their parents can no longer care for them.
May 3, 2018
This report presents results from a community conversation aimed at identifying pathways toward an inclusive and bias-free community. The conversation served as the closing community event of the Oyster River Community Read (ORCR) Program that ran from January to April 2018. The goal of this conversation was to increase understanding, generate ideas for change, and help participants get…
April 10, 2018
New Hampshire’s ocean coastline, though small relative to that of other states, is a place where people have lived, worked, and died for thousands of years. It is home to numerous important cultural heritage sites,1 and its identity is tied in tangible and intangible ways to centuries of marine-based ways of life.2 Tourism to the region’s remnant historic heritage sites and cultural landscapes is…
March 27, 2018
The U.S. drug overdose problem has reached epidemic levels, prompting President Trump to declare a public health emergency. Since 2000, 786,781 people in the United States have died from drug overdoses and other drug-related causes, with nearly 40 percent of those deaths occurring in the last three years alone.
March 22, 2018
New Census Bureau data released on March 22, 2018, demonstrate the continuing influence of domestic migration on U.S. demographic trends. Migration patterns are reverting to those common before the recession. Suburban counties of large metropolitan areas, smaller metropolitan areas, and rural counties proximate to metropolitan areas all gained more domestic migrants in the last year. In contrast…
March 20, 2018
The majority of Americans—55.7 percent in 2016, according to the Census Bureau—access health insurance through employer-based plans.1 However, employment does not always result in health insurance coverage, and not all those who report working full time, year round are covered by an employer-based plan. In particular, many low-income workers are unable to access health insurance through their…
March 13, 2018
From more frequent flooding to heat waves and drought, adverse impacts from climate change are already being experienced. Scientists warn of worse impacts within the lifetime of many people alive today, if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. Although majorities in all age groups recognize the reality of climate change, awareness is highest among young adults.
February 22, 2018
Among scientists who study the Earth’s climate, there is overwhelming agreement that humans are causing rapid change.1 Surveys find that the U.S. public underestimates the extent to which scientists agree on this point,2 but public awareness is gradually rising (Figure 1).
February 13, 2018
The aging of the U.S. population is an ongoing trend. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2050 one in every five Americans will be over 65, and that by 2060 the over-65 population will have doubled in absolute size and the over-85 population will have tripled. Life expectancy of a 65-year-old in 2014 compared to 1980 was 3.9 years longer for a man and 4.3 years longer for a woman.
December 22, 2017
The population of New Hampshire grew by 7,800 between July of 2016 and July of 2017 to 1,343,000 according to new Census Bureau estimates. This is the largest population gain for the state since 2005 and 60 percent greater than last year, though it remains modest compared to gains in the 1980s and 1990s. Migration accounted for nearly all of the growth. New Hampshire had a net domestic migration…
December 21, 2017
As outlined in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, there is an urgent need for mechanisms that effectively scale proven interventions for tackling some of humanity’s toughest challenges (United Nations 2015). While there are exemplary models that have proven to be highly effective, there are relatively few examples that have achieved large-scale replication.
December 20, 2017
This case study provides an overview of Ziweto Enterprises, a social venture using franchising methodology to scale its growth. The goal of this study is to present a clear picture of how the starting stages of a social franchise can expand and thrive in a developing country such as Malawi. By discussing Ziweto’s history, business model, operations, challenges, successes, decision-making process…
December 19, 2017
The opioid crisis besetting every region of the United States directly affects more than just those who use substances. For a pregnant woman, a consequence of substance use can be neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS)—withdrawal symptoms experienced by the newborn (see Box 1).
December 18, 2017
The 2020 Census will have ramifications for every person in the United States, urban and rural residents alike.1 Interest in the Census is growing2 and the Census Bureau’s plans are becoming more concrete,3 but little has been written about the special challenges that will make some rural areas and populations difficult to enumerate accurately.
December 15, 2017
Working families with young children face substantial barriers in accessing and affording quality child care. Figure 1 shows that among working families with a child under age 3, those who do not pay for child care are more likely to live in poor or low-income families than those who do pay for child care (61 percent versus 45 percent).
December 15, 2017
Low-income families with working parents face significant burdens paying for child care, which can function as a barrier to work and often means parents must rely on child care arrangements that are less formal and less stable.1 Amid national concerns about the high cost of child care, it is important to keep this issue at the forefront. Given the especially high costs of care for very young…
December 12, 2017
In 2016, there were 2.1 million more childless women of prime child-bearing age than anticipated. The 19.5 million women age 20–39 in 2016 who had never given birth was 12 percent more than demographers would have expected given child-bearing patterns just before the Great Recession. In 2016, there were 7 percent more women 20–39 than ten years earlier, but 22 percent more who had never had a…
December 5, 2017
Hit hard by the national decline in natural-resource and manufacturing jobs, North Country communities in northern New Hampshire and bordering areas of Maine and Vermont (Figure 1) continue to face challenges in restructuring their economies.1 A 2008 study classified Coös County, New Hampshire, and Oxford County, Maine, as “amenity/decline” regions, a common pattern in rural America where…
