This is bad news, the kind we associate with cities, with gangs and slums and urban blight. But the blight isn’t urban, it’s rural. There’s a cornfield across from the crack house. And at least one of the nervous young men tapping at the window grew up in a peaceful country household, raised a calf in 4-H, skipped rocks on his neighbor’s pond. Now he wants a new kind of rock in his pockets.

Drug abuse. Teen pregnancy. AIDS. The plagues of cities take a turn in rural homes. And even where the landscape blooms with images of health, health is too often at risk. Beyond the peach orchards and Christmas tree plantations, beyond the gaze of tourists racing up and down the roads, people need help. Too many elderly men and women live in isolation, eating poorly, not seeing doctors, not taking medicines they need. Too many young, pregnant women aren’t getting prenatal care. And too many people are dying with cancers that could have been stopped.

For Carolina, no issue is more serious than these. Across the state, in all 100 counties, the university’s researchers, teachers, students, public-health specialists, social workers, physicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, and others are working. As H. Garland Hershey, Vice Provost for Health Affairs, puts it: "We see the health of all North Carolinians as our responsibility, whether they’re rural or urban. And all of our schools take that mandate quite seriously."

As a result, there is progress—in science, in services, in education, and in care. But the faculty members we interviewed were not inclined to dwell on their accomplishments. They wanted to talk about the work that’s left to do. So in this issue of Endeavors, you won’t find accounts of problems neatly solved. You will find instead a glimpse of what is being done.

The Editor