October 24, 2025- Nearly 46 million people in the U.S. live in rural areas, and roughly 77% of rural counties in the U.S. are considered healthcare deserts, or geographic regions where residents face significant barriers to healthcare access, according to the National Rural Health Association (NRHA). There are numerous ways to define rural health. The federal government designates more than 70 different ways of defining rural health across various agencies.
NRHA, a national membership organization that represents more than 90% of the nation’s rural hospitals, rural health clinics, and rural community health centers, strongly recommends that definitions of rural be specific to the purposes of the programs in which they are used, and that they are referred to as programmatic designations and not as definitions.
“At NRHA, we define rural America as a place where those most in need of healthcare services often have the fewest options available to access that care,” said Alan Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of NRHA. As CEO, Morgan oversees the organization’s educational, program and policy activities.
NRHA aims to address rural health challenges by identifying best practices, sharing those best practices for replication and working through legislation and regulation to remove barriers to expanding them.
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