Find Rural Health Programs and Resources
The USDA has many programs and resources that can support rural communities improve their health and quality of life, but many programs do not have “health” in the title or description. To help rural community leaders and others to identify which USDA programs and resources can help improve a rural community’s health, a USDA Rural Health Inventory tool has been developed.
This tool is a curated library of active USDA’s programs and resources that support rural health. You can use the filters at the top to simplify your search in finding the programs and resources available by Sub-Agency, Program Type, or Assistance Type. Select the Rurality Requirement box to show programs and resources eligible for rural communities only.
Rural health programs are the emphasis, but this library is inclusive of all health programs.
This program helps remote Alaskan villages provide safe, reliable drinking water and waste disposal systems for households and businesses.
This program helps eligible communities prepare, or recover from, an emergency that threatens the availability of safe, reliable drinking water.
The Source Water Protection Program (SWPP) is designed to protect surface and ground water used as drinking water by rural residents. The program targets states based on their water quality and population.
The Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) works to prevent grazing and pasture land from being converted into cropland or used for urban development. In return for voluntarily limiting the future development of their land, farmers receive a rental payment.
The Farmable Wetlands Program (FWP) is designed to restore previously farmed wetlands and wetland buffer to improve both vegetation and water flow. FWP is a voluntary program to restore up to one million acres of farmable wetlands and associated buffers. Participants must agree to restore the wetlands, establish plant cover, and to not use enrolled land for commercial purposes. Plant cover may include plants that are partially submerged or specific types of trees. The Farm Services Agency (FSA) runs the program through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) with assistance from other government agencies and local conservation groups.
CRP is a land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. Contracts for land enrolled in CRP are from 10 to15 years in length. The long-term goal of the program is to re-establish valuable land cover to help improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat.
The Agricultural Act of 2014 (the 2014 Farm Bill) authorized the Tree Assistance Program (TAP) to provide financial assistance to qualifying orchardists and nursery tree growers to replant or rehabilitate eligible trees, bushes and vines damaged by natural disasters. The 2014 Farm Bill makes TAP a permanent disaster program and provides retroactive authority to cover eligible losses back to Oct. 1, 2011.
The Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) helps the owners of non-industrial private forests restore forest health damaged by natural disasters. The EFRP does this by authorizing payments to owners of private forests to restore disaster damaged forests.
The Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) helps farmers and ranchers to repair damage to farmlands caused by natural disasters and to help put in place methods for water conservation during severe drought. The ECP does this by giving ranchers and farmers funding and assistance to repair the damaged farmland or to install methods for water conservation.
The Regional Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Centers of Excellence (RNECE) initiative was created to strengthen the science and enhance dissemination of nutrition education and obesity prevention strategies and interventions that produce measurable improvements in health, obesity, nutrition (food behavior), and physical activity-related outcomes of interest to USDA. Through this initiative NIFA, FNS, and partners worked broadly with stakeholders to develop effective education/extension, environmental, systems, and policy translational activities that promote health and prevent/reduce obesity in disadvantaged low-income families and children.