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Table 5 Definitions of ‘rural’ as the actual/preferred work locations of Asia-Pacific LMICs doctors and medical students

From: Factors associated with increasing rural doctor supply in Asia-Pacific LMICs: a scoping review

Definition of rural

Method

Total (%)

Examples of definition

Quantitative

Qualitative

Others

No definition

18

6

4

28 (39.4)

The articles either: (1) had no definition of rural or no description of the place characteristics where the study was done and this was not cross-referenced to an earlier study by the authors [66, 68, 69, 74,75,76, 78, 81, 92], or; (2) relied on respondents’ own definition of rural [33,34,35, 37, 39, 40, 43,44,45, 54, 55, 73, 79, 80, 88, 89, 93, 94, 98]

Facility-related

Type of health facility

9

1

0

10 (14.1)

Township-village health center [47, 95], county or township hospital [61], community or primary or additional primary health centers, secondary hospital [67], community hospital [31, 49], government rural health unit [63, 64]

Non-facility related

Population size

2

0

0

2 (2.8)

City/municipality with less than 100,000 population [65], district with < 25,000 population [42]

Non-metropolitan

6

0

0

6 (8.5)

Area outside the country capital and/or large city [26,27,28,29, 48, 82]

Administrative unit

3

0

0

3 (4.2)

Any area of county, town or village [36]; rural or farther rural [84]; township or rural county [77]

One of the most rural regions in a country

2

4

4

10 (14.1)

Rural relative to other areas in the country, such as: Kampong Chhnang in Cambodia, Guangxi in China [32]; Bac Giang, Lao Cai and Thai Binh in Vietnam [32, 70]; Chattisgarh and Odisha in India [53, 57, 86, 91], East Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia and Zamboanga in the Philippines [32, 51, 53, 57, 62, 70, 86, 90]

Access and/or topography

2

3

0

5 (7.0)

Limited connection to other areas [56], access for transportation [50, 58], mountainous topography, presence of tribal population [52, 83]

Combination of facility and location related

Type of facility and other characteristics

2

1

0

3 (4.2)

Working in all district and commune-level facilities located outside the country capital [30, 46], area with low population density and poor health facility [59]

Assigned as areas or facilities of doctor shortages

4

0

0

4 (5.6)

Rural posts refer to positions either in selected health facilities or specified areas experiencing doctor shortage [37, 60, 85, 87]