Excerpt from JPHC Editors Tim Stokes & Felicity Goodyear-Smith [read in full here]

.....our two guest editorials use the concept of geographical narcissism to help understand and address the challenges facing rural health. Nixon addresses the current state and future direction of academic rural health. His argument is that successful academic rural health requires its practitioners to both practice and research in rural communities. He notes that we only need to look across the ditch to see the benefits that have accrued from Australian government investment in health professional education and research in rural and regional communities. He ends with a question: is it possible to properly deliver health professional education and research in rural NZ without first addressing funding models? Eggleton, in contrast, uses an urban norm-critical approach in his reframing of rural health inequities. He argues that this reframing requires a focus on urban privilege and power, the discourse of representation needs to be challenged – there is no ‘one’ rural voice – and that rural needs to be centred as ‘normal.’ 

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Nixon Garry (2024) Taken out of context: academic rural health in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Primary Health Care 16, 228-229.  [Also featured here]

Eggleton Kyle (2024) Reframing rural health inequities: a norm-critical approach. Journal of Primary Health Care 16, 230-231.