Improving life for rural Americans with disabilities
University of Montana Rural Institute
Rural Institute (RI) is committed to creating better lives for rural people with disabilities and their families. With innovative services, training and research, RI strives to improve independence and participation of people with disabilities in everyday activities and all aspects of the community.
- Education and Training include Living Well with a Disability, a health promotion program that helps participants reach the quality of life goals through healthy lifestyles.
- Our community services include assistive technology demonstration and equipment loan to enable independence at home, school, work, and in the community throughout Montana.
- Research areas include rural transportation and employment options to support economic independence. The 40+ RIIC projects focus on employment, independent and healthy living, education, accessible housing, and transportation to enable rural Americans to be fully included in their communities.
The Rural Institute is one of 67 University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), funded by the U.S. Administration for Community Living.The national enrollment for the All of Us Research Program is open now!
22.5% of adults in the U.S. have some type of disability
21.4% of adults in Montana have some type of disability
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/impacts/montana.html
All of Us Research Program
The All of Us Research Program is a historic effort to gather data from one million or more people living in the United States to accelerate research and improve health. By taking into account individual differences in lifestyle, environment, and biology, researchers will uncover paths toward delivering precision medicine.
Precision medicine is health care that is based on you as an individual. It takes into account factors like where you live, what you do, and your family health history. Precision medicine’s goal is to be able to tell people the best ways to stay healthy. If someone does get sick, precision medicine may help health care teams find the treatment that will work best.
The national enrollment for All of Us Research Project is open now! All eligible adults who live in the United States can join the All of Us Research Program. People of every race, ethnicity, sex, gender, disability, and sexual orientation are welcome.Joining the All of Us Research Program is free and won’t cost you anything more than a little bit of your time.
To join All of Us Research Project or to subscribe for more information, please visit www.joinallofus.org.
After working for several years as a research assistant for the Montana Disability and Health program at the Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities, and completing her Master’s in Public Health at UM, Helen Russette went to work for the Missoula City-County Health Department (MCCHD). There, she aided in the development of a community health needs assessment (CHA) process that fully includes representatives of marginalized populations. She recently shared this work in February 2018 article published with co-author, Robin Nielson-Cerquone, MJ, MCCHD Accreditation Specialist, on the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) website.