Economic aspects of rural sanitation in the United States of America.

Although health conditions in the rural areas of the USA are comparatively good, they are inferior to those in the urban areas. An important reason for this inferiority is the fact that rural sanitation is less a social responsibility than an individual responsibility, which many rural families cannot finance. The rural culture imposes many handicaps on the rural family's health and wealth. Such handicaps may be moderated by sanitation and related social and economic measures, if the measures selected are appropriate to the local needs and resources, which may vary greatly. Although sanitation needs are common to all rural areas, the refinement and complexity of sanitation facilities and services cannot be uniform. Allowing for variable circumstances, however, the basic elements of rural sanitation in the USA can be realized within a generation. The probable net gains in farm productivity would seem to warrant support for a rural sanitation programme on economic grounds alone, if an economic market may be assumed for the increase in agricultural production.