Rural Miscellany August 2026
The August edition of the Occasional Rural Miscellany, compiled by Dr John Wynn-Jones, past chair of Rural WONCA and EURIPA, is now available.
Dr Wynn-Jones introduces the edition:
Welcome once more to the monthly Rural Miscellany, which has been transmitted on a regular basis since April 2020. It started as my contribution to those of you working on the front line during the Covid Pandemic. RuralWONCA has come a long way since we established it in Hong Kong in 1995 but my primary aim was to reach out to individuals working in and for rural communities.
I explore the importance of fostering a balance between our global aspirations and local and regional activism.
I also look at the impact of climate change, and especially the heat on the rural agricultural poor.
There is much more in this month's Rural Miscellany. Please take a look and enjoy.
Any suggestions for future posts will be greatly appreciated.
John Wynn-Jones
What is inside this month
The August edition covers heat and climate change in rural areas across the Northern Hemisphere, including reporting on the undercounting of heat-related deaths among rural agricultural workers in South Asia, alongside a selection of poems on heat and wildfire.
A feature on fostering regional and local rural health groups sets out the case for building Rural WONCA groups aligned with each WONCA region and WHO regional office, and highlights the work of EURIPA and its research priorities for 2025 to 2028.
News from AfroPHC reports on the deepening maternal health crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the country's Ebola outbreak becomes its largest on record, together with shorter items on primary healthcare financing in Nigeria, the 9th WONCA Africa Region Conference in Gaborone, Kenya's Taifa Care Model, rural health information systems in West Africa, and the global burden of foodborne disease.
A report from the 9th Ibero-American Congress of Family Medicine in Asunción, Paraguay, is contributed by 2026 Montegut Scholar Dr Juan Carlos Perozo García of Venezuela.
The edition also marks the start of the first cohort of the WONCA Young Family Doctors NCD Fellowship, with seven early-career family doctors from six WONCA regions.
The conferences and events section covers the 15th EURIPA Rural Health Forum in Cartagena, Spain (1 to 3 October 2026), the 9th World One Health Congress in Lisbon, Portugal (4 to 7 September 2026), and further WONCA regional and world conferences.
A round-up of education, webinars, videos and podcasts is followed by new articles published in Rural and Remote Health and a wide selection of papers from other journals, covering topics from rural digital health and workforce retention to global health governance, evidence-based medicine and artificial intelligence.
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Rural Miscellany August 2026