Challenges and Opportunities for Workforce Programs in Rural Areas: Evidence from HPOG 2.0

Recent research has explored the delivery of human services programs in rural contexts, identifying promising models for service delivery and highlighting remaining needs. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation research brief uses data from the National Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) to further examine human services delivery in rural areas. The brief explores variation in participant characteristics between programs in rural and non-rural areas; implementation strategies and challenges for programs operating in rural areas; and differences in impacts on participant outcomes between participants in rural and non-rural programs. The discussion of implementation strategies and challenges for programs highlights some service delivery challenges reported by both rural and non-rural program staff, but specifically focuses on strategies that rural program staff use to mitigate those challenges.