Journal of Rural Community Nursing Practice

Spatial Accessibility of Community-Based Child-Rearing Health Consultation Services in a Mixed Urban-Rural Municipality in Japan: An Open-Data GIS Analysis

2026-03-10T21:41:57+00:00

Background: Community-based child-rearing support services are essential for promoting equitable access to maternal and childcare. However, spatial inequities in accessibility may persist in municipalities that encompass both urban and rural areas. The expansion of open government data enables transparent evaluation of spatial accessibility in local health planning. Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the spatial accessibility of community-based child-rearing health consultation services in Kanazawa City and to demonstrate a reproducible open-data GIS framework applicable to municipal-level child health planning. Methods: A cross-sectional spatial analysis was conducted using consultation site locations and population data in 250-m grid-cells for children aged 0–2 years. Network-based service areas were generated using predefined walking (900 m and 1,800 m) and driving (7.5 km and 15 km) distances. Both area-based coverage and population-weighted coverage within these service areas were calculated. Results: Forty-nine consultation sites were identified. At the 1,800-m walking-distance threshold, service areas covered 76.1% of child-inhabited residential grid areas and 86.5% of the population aged 0–2 years, indicating higher population-weighted coverage than area-based coverage. In contrast, driving-distance service areas encompassed nearly all residential grid areas and virtually all children within the municipality. Conclusions: Pedestrian accessibility to child-rearing consultation services varies within this mixed urban–rural municipality, leaving geographically dispersed areas underserved despite relatively high population-weighted coverage in urban districts. Open-data-driven spatial analysis using both area-based and population-weighted indicators provides a scalable framework for identifying spatial inequities and supporting evidence-based municipal child health planning

Toward the Integration of Agro-Nursing in Philippine Public Health Systems: A Policy Analysis

2026-04-14T12:02:22+00:00

Background: The integration of public health and agriculture represents a unique and revolutionary mechanism to create solutions to the problems of malnutrition, hunger and rural health that are prevalent in the Philippines. Purpose: This policy analysis documents the introduction of "agro-nursing" – an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates agriculture into therapeutic health interventions and nutritional care – into the public health system of the Philippines. Methods: The policy analysis uses the Health Policy Triangle as an analytic lens to contend with the content, context, process, and actors associated with the integration of agro-nursing. Results: The results of the policy analysis demonstrate that while there is a policy-oriented window of opportunity, specifically in the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act, to enact multi-disciplinary, multi-agency health interventions, the coordination of Agency-level partnerships between the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) must continue to advance. The findings suggest the integration of agro-nursing can create a bridge between clinical care and community food sovereignty, especially amongst climate-affected rural communities. More significantly, the findings show that several issues of policy related to legislation, regulatory scopes of practice, and resource allocation need to be addressed. Conclusion: It is recommended that inter-agency governance be institutionalized, nursing education be supplemented with nutrition-sensitive agriculture components, and pilot models be implemented at the Local Government Unit (LGU) level. By shifting community health from reactive medical care to a proactive ecological health lens, the Philippines could bolster community resilience and sustainable health outcomes.

Internet of Things Enabled Nursing Education and Care: A Global Scoping Review of Evidence, Implementation Challenges, and Policy Implications

2026-04-18T14:36:53+00:00

Purpose: To outline, evaluate, and integrate empirical and review literature provided by the requester on IoT, other smart-health technologies, and the digital policies influencing nursing education, clinical practice, and population health. Methods: Five-stage Arksey & O’Malley scoping review with Mattos, Levacs Refinements and PRISMA-ScR reporting. 16 full-text PDFs spanning publication years 2014-2024. Inclusion criteria: English, peer-reviewed, IoT, “Internet +” or other digital-transition technologies; relevance to nursing curricula, nursing services, and healthcare delivery or health-enabling smart cities. Results: Sixteen eligible records were identified: four quantitative primary studies, three cross-sectional surveys, one RCT, two engineering/architecture papers, two systematic reviews, one scoping review protocol, one narrative review, one meta-review of IoT definitions, one Macro-policy analysis of digital broadband policies, and one commentary, “Healthy Smart City.” Geographic publication clustering identified East Asia (7) and Europe (3). Substantial repetitive benefits included enhanced psychomotor competence, high intention to adopt IoT in practice, real-time decision support, and macro-level public health improvements. Barriers focused on interoperability, privacy, expense, and gaps in digital readiness. Conclusions: Learning and service outcomes from IoT-enabled pedagogies and care systems are positive, but practical evaluation and equity-focused implementation science are lacking. For increased adoption, cross-national reimbursement frameworks, revised curricula, and multi-disciplinary standards frameworks are essential.