Studies are underway to get a better picture of how widespread mental health is a problem in rural America - especially when it comes in comparison to the rest of the population.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
The moments of stress that those in agriculture face can be intense.
Right now, there is a lot of effort going into pinpointing the most vulnerable as well as what can be done to provide resources and assistance for those who need help.
Josie Rudolphi is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois and is still involved with her family’s farm in Iowa.
Transcript
Josie Rudolphi: So since about 2017, I've really been focused in the farm stress and mental health space. There's been a lot of conversations around the experience that farmers have the sort of very unique stressors that they experience. And unfortunately, the really high rates of suicide and increased prevalence of things like anxiety and depression in our population.
[Yeager] Does it correlate with the general population?
[Rudolphi] What we see, the research is a, there's some caveats. We don't have perfect research, like we'd love to have a sample that includes farm and nonfarm. But oftentimes we sample farm and we have to make relatively general comparisons to the general population. But what we see is we do surveys of farmers in the Midwest, and that's where I focus a lot of my work. We see farmers experience, in our sample, we might see like 70, or even, like 75% meet the criteria for depression. Whereas in the general population, we might see closer to 20-22%. So we're seeing a much higher or more prevalent situations of depression in the farm community.”
“988” is the three-digit, nationwide phone number to connect directly to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or refer someone you know to be connected with mental health professionals anytime of day or night.
Contact: Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org
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