When working with rural public health professionals across the country, one message emerges consistently: Resources tailored to the realities of rural practice are difficult to find. Many existing tools and training opportunities were developed for larger organizations and communities, and what works in a large urban health department doesn’t always translate to a small, rural department.

Rural practitioners need resources and strategies built around their unique strengths, constraints, and community dynamics. They constantly juggle multiple roles, responding to emergencies, tracking community health data, building partnerships, and more—often with limited staff, resources, and time.

That’s why we at the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis^® partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Office of Rural Health (ORH) to develop a training series specifically for rural public health. These courses fill critical resource gaps and help build rural workforce capacity.

We have seen firsthand the realities of rural public health practice: multiple responsibilities, limited specialized expertise, strong community connections, and creative problem-solving. To better understand where rural practitioners need the most support, we spoke directly with the people doing the work, including rural public health leaders in four states (Vermont, Kansas, North Dakota, and Washington). We also reviewed existing research on rural public health workforce training needs.

These conversations surfaced several training priorities, including data analytics, policy development, financial management, and foundational public health knowledge. The rural health leaders also told us that many rural health departments rely on staff who are new to public health or transitioning from clinical roles, making workforce development another essential topic.

Learning about the specific courses rural practitioners want was helpful, but even more insightful were their thoughts on the types of training they want (and don’t want).

Rural professionals said they need tools they can immediately put into practice in their day-to-day work. They want to hear about real-life examples that reflect rural public health practice. And they’re not interested in abstract concepts for potential future use.

Interviewees told us that training works best when it is concise, flexible, and practical. Many staff complete trainings during lunch breaks or commutes, making short, asynchronous learning opportunities valuable.

These findings directly shaped both the topics and design of the Rural Public Health Training Series. 

The first training, Introduction to Rural Public Health, launched in October 2025 and provides foundational knowledge about rural public health systems, services, and community strengths. We designed it to give learners a common understanding of rural public health and the unique context in which rural practitioners work.

Among the topics practitioners identified, data and policy stood out as high-priority areas where additional practical training could immediately support rural public health practice. In response, we developed two new training modules in 2026: Practical Data Skills for Rural Public Health and Practical Approaches to Rural Public Health Policy.

The Practical Data Skills training helps practitioners find, interpret, and use data to support decision-making in rural communities. The Practical Approaches training helps learners understand how policy decisions are made and how they can participate in those discussions regardless of their role.

Throughout the development process, we continued to interview rural practitioners and gather examples from real-world practice. Their experiences shaped the scenarios, case examples, and lessons included in the trainings. 

And we’re not done yet. Additional modules on community partnerships, management and finance, communication, and public health sciences are in development, continuing the practitioner-informed approach that shaped the first trainings in the series.

Developing these trainings reinforced a foundational principle of our work at the NORC Walsh Center: Tools that build on community strengths, respond to local needs, and reflect the realities of rural public health serve practitioners best.

We created the Rural Public Health Training Series for governmental public health professionals serving rural communities, but the lessons extend beyond local health departments. Students, community partners, health care providers, and others who work alongside rural health departments can benefit from practical approaches grounded in local context and designed for real-world application.

If this project reinforced one lesson, it’s that the best workforce development resources don’t start with competencies or content outlines. They start by listening to the people doing the work.

That’s the approach that shaped how we created these first trainings, and we’ll keep listening as rural public health evolves, ensuring these resources grow alongside the practitioners they serve.