“Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients To The Cities, Straining Hospital Capacity.”

Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology in the Maxwell School, was quoted in the NPR story “Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients To The Cities, Straining Hospital Capacity.” Monnat, who also serves as the Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion, says that rural areas have always struggled with health issues, yet the COVID 19 pandemic only exacerbated the situation. “It’s not just the rural health care infrastructure that becomes overwhelmed when there aren’t enough hospital beds, it’s also the surrounding neighborhoods, the suburbs, the urban hospital infrastructure starts to become overwhelmed as well,” says Monnat.