THE HEALTH OF THE RURAL POPULATION AND COVID-19 CHALLENGE

Abstract

In the article, I have proposed an analysis of the health of the rural population of Romania, compared to urban areas, also to look at the access of this population to health services and quality of offered medical services. On the background of the pandemic, the gaps between rural and urban areas, in terms of access of sick people to medical care has become a real challenge, as vast majority of the hospitals that treated COVID 19 patients were situated in urban areas. Also, rural people have lower access to sanitary utilities, as water facilities and toilets inside the house were important in terms of keeping the hygiene. Despite the factors that were disadvantaging rural part as co-morbidities, lack of family doctors in some communities, or hard access to sanitation and medical services, it seems the main factor that contribute to spread of COVID 19 disease was the density of population, that was higher in urban. That cand be seen that crowded communities were at highest risk of coronavirus disease and increase of mortality during pandemic. The additional mortality in 2021, compared to 2020 was higher in urban than in rural area. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.