This innovative resource offers a unique, multidisciplinary approach for the utilization of planning theory to eliminate health disparities in rural communities. The book provides tools in the public health, policy, and planning disciplines to help resolve significant differences in life expectancy and quality of life in these communities, concluding with a progressive vision for alleviating geographical health disparities on a local, national, and global scale. Chapters highlight models and approaches best suited to addressing this public health concern, suggesting action strategies focused around each of the three focus areas: public health, public policy, and rural planning. This book will find an engaged audience among non-profit organizations, planners, public health practitioners, policy analysts, and public interest groups, as well as rural health advocates and students enrolled in planning, public policy, and/or public health courses. It enriches understanding of best practices in public health, planning, and public policy approaches to eliminate rural health disparities; reviews exhaustively the key recent research on the global and national challenges associated with rural health outcomes; summarizes the latest studies on rural health disparities at the national and global levels; outlines each of the varied approaches to address rural health issues for planners, public health practitioners, and policy analysts; and reinforces basic principles on a range of planning theories used to eliminate rural health challenges, the policy theories to address rural health disparities, and the public health efforts to tackle rural health problems.