A community development approach to rural recruitment.

Programs designed to empower rural communities for health care provider recruitment have usually focused on the health care sector without aggressively addressing broader community development issues. The Recruitable Community Project (RCP) in West Virginia includes community education on recruiting and also assessments of and recommendations to rural communities on broad-based community development, aiming to enhance communities' recruiting potential. The project provides multidisciplinary university-based planning assistance programs for small communities, involving collaborative community visits. The project also uses a project manager as a "community encourager" who participates in community education and in the formulation of sustained community recruiting efforts. From August 1999 through August 2001, 7 underserved rural communities completed the RCP organizational processes and hosted planning assistance teams. Members of community recruitment boards gave high marks to the RCP process, its planning assistance teams, and its usefulness in establishing community ties to state and academic agencies. Since working with the RCP, the 7 communities have recruited 27 providers, success possibly stimulated by their RCP involvement (data current as of September 2002). This model of community training and development to empower rural communities to better recruit health professionals shows early promise. This model could be broadened to include more collaboration of community development and health science disciplines programs for recruitment and retention efforts.