Collaborative Collision: Rural Innovation
Rural communities have long been seen as the heart of our nation. But they also face unique challenges like providing affordable healthcare and high-quality education, expanding access to broadband internet, maintaining and modernizing aging infrastructure, and revitalizing declining economies — all while preserving the character that makes rural communities special.
Learn more about the six teams formed through Collaborative Collision below.
Characterizing the Continuum of Care for Neurodiverse Populations in North Florida’s Urban-Rural Regions.
To better understand stakeholders and other needs in the neurodiversity care ecosystem, our team aims to characterize the continuum of care in rural communities in North Florida to identify opportunities to close any care gaps that may exist. An interdisciplinary team is required to tackle this challenge because of the multi-sector nature of the continuum of care for individuals with neurodiversity in this region. Our team believes that high quality, accessible, and affordable health care is a human right for all. Overcoming the barriers to achieving health equity for individuals who are neurodiverse includes finding creative solutions for those living in rural communities.
Accelerator Winner ($100,000)
Strengthening Disaster Resilience in Rural Communities through Rural Resource Access Hubs (RRAH).
When extreme weather is projected to impact a rural community, RRAH connects with established community services, such as Departments of Emergency Management, to take actions that strengthen the community's ability to cope before, during and after the disaster. This project develops theories and algorithms to support "service on wheels" that provides critical supplies transported by vehicles, which delivers needed resources to rural communities before extreme weather events. The mobility of service-on-wheels can enable new resource-sharing services for disaster preparation. This service model matches the surplus of resources scattered across communities and mobilizes them to meet the demands of service receivers in need.
Accelerator Runner-up ($50,000)
Improving health outcomes in Jefferson County through a Community Partnership School needs assessment.
We plan to conduct needs assessments that are specifically tailored to the Jefferson County School community so we may assess not only what the needs are as the community sees them, but also to aid in the design of sustainable and effective interventions. We propose conducting a 4-phase project that will assist Jefferson County with forming a Community Partnership School(CPS). The four phases we propose are 1) Initial preparation and collecting & analyzing quantitative data, 2) Overseeing of community engagement and FSU involvement, 3) Collecting and analyzing qualitative data, and 4) Piloting an intervention.
Accelerator Finalist
RSNA-DNA: A Rural Social Network Analysis and Digital Needs Assessment.
The persistent digital gap between urban and rural areas has created an imperative for digital development rural areas. Most approaches are top-down or focused on a single sector. In contrast, this project takes a holistic, community-focused approach, starting with a comprehensive social network and digital needs analysis to identify pathways for spreading digital services and developing digital skills and self-efficacy in the community.
Social Network Analysis (SNA): How does knowledge spread throughout rural communities?
Digital Needs Analysis (DNA): what digital skills are needed to build self-efficacy?
Accelerator Finalist
Outside. Together.
On the uncededland of the Apalachee, Mascogo, Miccosukee, Muscogee, and Seminole, we will honor not only their histories and those of former residents of the culturally, socioeconomically, and racially diverse community that was Alumni Village but also create a mixed-use “village square” on Tallahassee’s oft-neglected southside. Talwa, a portmanteau of the Muskogee word for village and the Japanese word for harmony, will challenge the misperception of rural spaces as homogenous and will serve as an art, recreational, and educational site for public gatherings that promote “being outside together” at a time when pandemic spikes, polarizing political views, and misnomers about various valences of identity and ideology threaten to divide us.
Accelerator Finalist
Postpartum Depression and the Continuity of Prenatal Care in Florida’s Rural Spaces.
Our team plans to contribute to existing scholarship and assist the challenge of reducing the prevalence of postpartum depression in Florida's rural spaces by identifying relevant social determinants of PPD and clarifying how healthcare utilization practices influence this condition's prevalence during the perinatal period. We aim to answer the following research questions with our empirical analysis: 1) What structural and demographic factors contribute to the prevalence of perinatal depression within Florida’s rural areas? and2) How does continuity of care trends influence PPD prevalence among this population?