title: Rural-urban disparities in school nursing: implications for continuing education and rural school health.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Little is known about the professional and educational challenges experienced by rural school nurses. We conducted this study to describe disparities between the urban and rural professional school nurse workforce in New Mexico and to identify how best to meet the continuing education needs of New Mexico's rural school nurse workforce.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed state data from a 2009 New Mexico Department of Health school nurse workforce survey (71.7% response rate). We included all survey respondents who indicated working as a school nurse in a public school setting in any grade K-12 and who identified their county of employment (N = 311).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Rural school nurses were twice as likely as metropolitan nurses to provide clinical services to multiple school campuses (67.3% compared to 30.1%, P < .0001). They were less likely to hold a nursing degree at the baccalaureate level or higher (62.7% compared to 82.3%, P = .0002). Rural school nurses were less likely than metropolitan nurses to have received recent continuing education on anaphylaxis (P < .0001), asthma (P = .027), body mass index (BMI)/healthy weight (P = .0002), diabetes (P < .0001), lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) health (P = .0004), and suicide risk identification and prevention (P = .015). Online courses and telehealth were identified by rural school nurses as among the preferred means for receiving continuing education.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings support the provision of online courses and telehealth content to address urban-rural disparities in school nursing education and support rural school health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
authors.forename: Mary M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ramos
authors.forename: Lynne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fullerton
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sapien
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Greenberg
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bauer-Creegan
mesh_terms: D020375:Education, Distance; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing; D006302:Health Services Research; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D009516:New Mexico; D012423:Rural Health; D012573:School Nursing / Q000193:education*; D017216:Telemedicine; D014504:Urban Health
keywords: health disparities; health services research; nursing; rural health; school health