A conference this week at Iowa State University will tackle the issue of rural healthcare. Maurice MacDonald in human development and family studies at ISU says the Hawkeye State is well-suited to the topic. Iowa has among the nation’s highest percentage of people over 85 living in the country. He says in part it’s because the farm crisis of the 1980s made many farming families move away, but he says it’s also because “Iowa is a good place to retire and continue to live in, and people are tied to the land through farms and family tradition.”