Challenges for primary health care related with the state of health of rural inhabitants
For the last twenty five years in the Polish countryside, there have been observed significant changes in the socio-economic sphere, which result in the inhibition of urbanization processes and the reduction of the number of farmers. Alongside, farmers’ work has become less and less manual. However, there have been constant disparities, unfavorable for the rural population, in the education level and obtained income. The state of health of people living in rural areas has not been recently diagnosed and views on this issue are based on the estimated data or studies involving small groups of the population. However, these studies indicate increasing number of obese people and people with lipid disorders in rural areas, which may result in the near future in the increasing number of patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, in the years to come, the future of PH care in rural areas seems to be far from promising, as family medicine faces the prospect of growing number of retiring physicians and declining of those who wish to enter the specialization. Unless systemic measures are taken the state of health of rural population can be significantly degraded.
