Healthcare Equality in Heartland: How the National Grange Is Improving Rural Health - WISN
Mental health is a vital issue throughout American society—and during the pandemic, it became even more important in rural America.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates have been consistently higher in rural America than in urban areas, skyrocketing by 46% in non-metro areas between 2000 and 2020. Rates of depression, likewise, are rising in rural areas.
The National Grange has partnered with Rural Minds, a nonprofit confronting mental health challenges in rural America, to develop a Rural Suicide Awareness and Prevention program that uses a grassroots, person-to-person approach to providing information and resources. This also dovetails with the National Grange’s efforts to provide broadband access to telemedicine through which rural Americans can better reach mental health experts and clinicians.
But one underlying challenge to bringing more mental health care to rural America is battling the stigma that surrounds the subject in those parts of the country where people still worry a lot about what their neighbors might think.
“Some of the stigma is getting removed for the first time,” says Eller. “People in rural America are talking about mental health, particularly in agriculture, which has been suffering for some time. They’re turning to people they trust.”
To help get the resources, information, and expertise they need to reach these rural Americans, the National Grange turns to partners it can trust.