The Rural Bachelor of Allied Health: Program Evaluation

Rural communities face significant disadvantages accessing health care, training education opportunities and are more likely to have poorer health and socioeconomic outcomes than their metropolitan counterparts. Recruitment and retention of health professionals is challenging in rural areas and impacts accessibility and quality of health services available locally. The Regional Rural Remote Bachelor of Allied Health (BAH) program was introduced in 2024 enabling students to study occupational therapy, physiotherapy or speech pathology in the Riverland, Mid North and Limestone Coast regions. With a focus on educating rural origin students, the BAH aims to develop a workforce pipeline for rural South Australian communities and improve recruitment and retention locally. This report examines the early outcomes of the BAH in the first year of implementation (2024) utilising Flinders Intelligence Portal (FLIP), ABS Socio-economic Index for Areas data and data sourced from students directly. Approval for this research has been granted by Flinders University Human Research Ethics Committee.