Health Care Professionals, Rurality, and Intimate Femicide

Research demonstrates that disparities exist in access to quality rural health care. With studies showing that intimate partner violence is more severe and homicide is more prevalent in rural areas, scholars have begun to turn to the inaccessibility of health care in these areas as an explanation. The current study sets out to further this limited body of literature by examining the importance of rurality on the relationship between the availability of health care professionals and intimate femicide at the county level. Results indicate that rurality moderates the relationship between the availability of health care professionals and intimate femicide; however, results are not as predicted