Health Outcomes Among the Elderly with Multiple Chronic Conditions: Urban Versus Rural Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Healthcare is a prime area of public policies where geographic distribution of services is critically important. Urban concentration has both its advantages and disadvantages. Relative to rural areas, urbanization is associated with more physician availability, proximity to hospitals and health clinics, and better treatment modalities for critical care patients. These factors lead to a better access to healthcare for the general population as well as for the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable due to the existence of multiple chronic conditions and poorer functional status. On the other hand, recent data show that the urban agglomeration could have resulted in a higher prevalence of certain chronic conditions, such as asthma among children and COPD among the elderly, due to poorer living situations and poorer health outcomes, as marked by higher COVID-19 death rates. A comprehensive analysis of health outcomes for urban and rural area elderly residents, particularly those with a higher prevalence of chronic conditions and poorer functional status, will be useful to prescribe public policies for ideal geographic allocation of scarce healthcare resources.

Dr. Jayasree (Joy) Basu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Hospitals is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.