Previous research has documented increased lung cancer incidence and mortality in Appalachia. The current study tests whether residence in coal mining areas of Appalachia is a contributing factor. We conducted a national county-level analysis to identify contributions of smoking rates,...

In 2006, West Virginia established Mountain Health Choices, a key component of the state’s Medicaid redesign efforts. The program offers low-income parents and children the choice of two benefit plans. Beneficiaries receive additional benefits when they follow basic rules that are designed to...

In 2006, West Virginia established Mountain Health Choices, a key component of the state’s Medicaid redesign efforts. The program offers low-income parents and children the choice of two benefit plans. Beneficiaries receive additional benefits when they follow basic rules that are...

Two energy development scenarios were compared for the Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County, West Virginia: (1) mountaintop mining (MTM) of coal, and (2) wind energy plus underground mining of coal. Economic impact computations over the life of each energy development scenario were made on a...

Using a 1996 community survey of behavioral risk factors, this cross-sectional study of 804 residents in a rural community examines the relationship of community quality to the health status of women and men. We use two categories of community factors to assess community quality: measures of the...

This article reviews evidence for the public health impacts of coal across the extraction, processing, use, and waste disposal continuum. Surface coal mining and processing impose public health risks on residential communities through air and water pollution. Burning coal in power plants emits...

The study provides a framework to develop economic resilience index for West Virginia counties based on the premise that county economic resilience depends on its physical and human resources, structure and diversity of its economic base (employment and income diversity), entrepreneurial...

When choosing policy mechanisms to design and deploy energy policies, policymakers typically seek cost-effective ones, linking cost effectiveness to the lowest cost of support for RES-E generation and/or consumer costs. The objectives of this paper are to analyze the cost-effectiveness of...