Wabash Bridge in Ottumwa, Iowa, home to one of the PRC-  RH's community partners. This former bridge, originally built in 1860, was refurbished and is now part of the Wapello County Trails System. A live web cam of the bridge and trail can be found at www.wapellocountytrails.com.

The University of Iowa Prevention Research Center for Rural Health (PRC-RH) was first funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2002. The 37 Prevention Research Centers, designated by the CDC, constitute a network of academic, community, and public health partners that conducts applied public health research. Our mission is to improve the health of rural communities in Iowa. We will accomplish this by establishing and maintaining community partnerships, conducting research on health issues of mutual interest, and leveraging our collective resources in the most effective ways possible.

PRC NEWS

         

• Rural areas of the country have been especially affected by the obesity epidemic. Because many people eat in restaurants this is a possible point of environmental intervention. Small, owner-operated rural restaurants simply cannot afford many of the restaurant programs currently available. Dr. Faryle Nothwehr has developed a toolkit with the Iowa Department of Public Health based on the Rural Restaurant Healthy Options Project. This project was a low-cost, low-risk intervention in rural restaurants that was designed to influence ordering behavior. To get the materials and learn more about how you can set up healthy options in a restaurant click here. For more details about the research project "Healthy Options in Rural Restaurants" please visit the PRC-RH's core research page here.