RESUMEN
How healthy are the residents of rural Canada? How healthy are Canada's rural communities? Members of an interdisciplinary research team at the Brandon University Rural Development Institute, Manitoba, Canada, formed a partnership with rural stakeholders in an attempt to strengthen and build capacity in rural communities. One component of this research was the development of a framework to assist residents of rural communities to assess the health and sustainability of their community. Through dialogue with partners and review of the literature, a preliminary framework can be generated. This article formed the first step in the creation of such a framework. The article begins with common term and concept development, extends to a critical analysis of framework literature and culminates with consideration of steps to be taken next in the establishment of a framework and indicators that are both meaningful and useful for rural residents and their communities.
RESUMEN
This article reports on a workshop in which participants identified sources of data on rural aging. Such sources are typically part of larger data collection efforts or special aging studies with large rural components. Finding and using data on rural aging are not only two different processes but they also face somewhat different obstacles and the solutions are likewise different. The workshop addressed both of these issues. Participants shared many innovative and creative means for collecting, finding and adapting more general data sources, and analyzing and using these data, to further our understanding of rural aging phenomena.