An increasing frequency of farmer suicides, driven partly by the dairy crisis, natural disasters and other troubles, has focused new attention on the paucity of mental health care in rural America, Lynda Waddington reports for the Iowa Independent.
The nation’s largest crisis help line for agricultural workers is the Iowa-based Sowing the Seeds of Hope hotline, sponsored by Iowa State University and Agri-Wellness. It serves rural people in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas. Calls to the line are up 20 percent over this time last year, and “The callers are reporting much more severe economic turmoil, more mental health symptoms and significant increases in mental stress,” Agri-Wellness Executive Director Mike Rosmann told Waddington.
"Experts say Midwestern states like Iowa are better prepared to deal with rural mental health problems," Waddington writes, but many other states offer little help to troubled farmers. "Further complicating the access issue for rural Americans is that there are very few medical educational tracks currently available that train health care professionals about the specific concerns that are often seen in more rural settings. And, outside of the rudimentary knowledge provided within those few agricultural medicine courses, there is no national curriculum in place for behavioral health professionals who intend to service rural areas." (Read more)
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