Posted on July 12th, 2024 in NCR-Stat, NCRCRD News

New survey focuses on the intersection of small businesses, benefits, and rural health

West Lafayette, Ind, July12, 2024 – North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) continues to grow its open access, regional database with the release of the NCR-Stat: Small Business dataset. Because rural businesses are essential to their communities, often employing rural residents and impacting the local economy, NCRCRD conducted the NCR-Stat: Small Business Survey to explore the intersection of small businesses and rural health.

This new, open access dataset includes 1,287 responses from small business owners in the North Central Region on a variety of topics including business ownership type, small business benefits, substance misuse and mental health, workforce development, trust and community, adjustment strategies, socioemotional wealth, financials, and business owners’ households.

Renee Wiatt, NCRCRD Research and Extension Specialist and Family Business Management Specialist at Purdue University who led the survey’s development and implementation shared, “By specifically exploring the intersection of small businesses and rural health, we hope that researchers can better understand the decisions that small business owners make as employers, what benefits they are able to provide to their employees, rural health impacts, and other aspects of small business ownership in rural America.”

All data gathered via the NCR-Stat: Small Business Survey is open access and available for those who want to use the data as a baseline for further research and to extend the portfolio of already existing databases. The information gathered from this survey is intended to be shared with communities, organizations, and decision-makers to help inform future policies and programs and better support small businesses and workforce development in the North Central Region.

An upcoming NCRCRD webinar on August 27, 2024, at 1:00 pm (ET) will introduce the new NCR-Stat: Small Business dataset. Additional webinar information and registration is available on the NCRCRD website.

NCR-Stat Database
The Small Business survey is part of a larger effort by NCRCRD to build an NCR-Stat database to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers and Extension, and between high- and low-resourced institutions across the region. “We are very excited about the growth of the NCR-Stat. The publication of the thematic surveys, like the NCR-Stat: Small Business begins to realize the potential of the database. More information about our region is available and new collaborations are developing,” said Maria Marshall, Director, NCRCRD.

Available NCR-Stat Datasets:

Additional Regional Datasets in Development:
NCRCRD has two additional North Central Region surveys in development and is also working with our sister centers – the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD) and Southern Rural Development (SRDC) – to conduct some of the same NCR-Stat surveys in their region. Regional surveys in development or recently released include:

  • North Central Region: NCR-Stat: Baseline 2024 and NCR-Stat: Housing
  • Northeast Region: NER-Stat: Caregiving (available now) and NER-Stat: Baseline 2024
  • Southern Region: SR-Stat: Baseline 2024

 

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If you would like more information about this topic, please email Mary Breidenbach, NCRCRD Communications Specialist at mabreide@purdue.edu.

To stay up-to-date on the NCR-Stat database and the Center’s other endeavors, please consider joining the NCRCRD mailing list.

The North Central Regional Center for Rural (NCRCRD) is one of four Regional Rural Development Centers in the United States. NCRCRD’s work links the research and educational outreach capacity of our region’s 34 land-grant universities with our region’s communities, local decision-makers, entrepreneurs, families, farmers, and ranchers to help address a wide range of development issues unique to our 12-state region. NCRCRD promotes regional collaboration by elevating the research and extension programs in our region; offering grant opportunities to support new and ongoing regional research, extension, and integrated activities; establishing a North Central Region dataset to encourage regional exploration; and creating networking opportunities through webinars, sponsorships, and making introductions between our partners. For more information, please visit https://ncrcrd.org/.

NCRCRD receives core funds from the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) as well as from the North Central Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors (NCRA), North Central Cooperatives of Extension Association (NCCEA), and Purdue University, College of Agriculture.

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