Rurality as an analytic category: Implications for public health

Abstract

Rurality as a concept was originated within the framework of the migration phenomena of the nineteenth century. During the post-war period, a dichotomic approach was esta-blished for this concept, along with the emerging notion of growth, which influenced the economic models of multiple countries worldwide. However, during the last 50 years, the rurality concept acquired a polysemic nature. Thus, the main objective of this article is analyzing several definitions of rurality from the perspective of some subdisciplines of the social sciences and their lines of thought to evaluate their implications for public health within different contexts.