List of Rural Counties And Designated Eligible Census Tracts in Metropolitan Counties

The Office of Rural Health Policy uses two methods to determine geographic eligibility for its grant programs. As in prior years, all counties that are not designated as parts of Metropolitan Areas (MAs) by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are considered rural. Any county that is not a part of a Metropolitan Area is considered rural. Counties classified as Micropolitan are non-Metropolitan. 

Due to the fact that entire counties are designated as Metropolitan when, in fact, large parts of many counties may be rural in nature, the Office of Rural Health Policy has sought an alternative method of looking at sub-county sections of these Metropolitan counties that would allow sections to be designated rural. The Goldsmith modification was originally developed and used to identify rural Census tracts in large Metropolitan counties.