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. 2016 Feb 1;25(1):24–34.

Table 1.

The Society of Rural Physicians of Canada definition of rural and/or remote (Teperman, Administrative Officer, Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, 2011).

The Society of Rural and Physicians of Canada defines rural and/or remote by the following criteria:

  1. The MIDDLE digit of the FIRST 3 digits in the postal code is “0”. “0” is defined as rural. (Canada Post’s Definition of Rural).

  2. Postal codes in Census Agglomerations of 10,000 or less (defined by Statistics Canada).

  3. Postal codes where it is more than one hour to a tertiary care centre.

  4. All Territories are defined as remote.

  5. Medically rural is defined with Postal codes in areas near to the borderline of distance to a tertiary care centre where the local hospitals provide a broader range of medical services i.e. surgery, obstetrics, etc. (Steele et al., 2012)