According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 60 million people, or one in five Americans, live in rural America. Studies from the CDC are now drawing attention to the gap in health between urban and rural America. However, in urban areas, there are still plenty who find it difficult to access the primary or specialty care they need. Delays and longer wait times are often the case in these areas as well. 

Though there’s an urge to discover whether people in cities or the countryside have it better when it comes to access to medical professionals, the differences between states and the way people in both populations utilize healthcare services make a definitive winner-loser comparison impossible. 

What we can do is look at a few telling aspects of how rural medical care compares to that of cities.