On February 4, 2026, the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus (CNC), in cooperation with the American Brain Coalition (ABC), American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), American Neurological Association (ANA), American Psychiatric Association, One Mind, Society for Neuroscience, The STARR Coalition, Bristol Myers Squibb, Neurocrine Biosciences, and Otsuka US, hosted a briefing highlighting the current neuroscience research that explains how mental health conditions develop, how stigma influences health outcomes, and what evidence-based strategies can effectively reduce societal and self-stigma.

Each year, as we recognize the third Thursday of November as Rural Health Day, it’s important to acknowledge that mental health is the foundation of overall health for the 46 million people living in rural communities across the country. There is a mental health emergency in rural America due to inherent barriers to mental healthcare that lead to suicide rates that are 49% higher among rural residents compared to urban residents. You may not realize it, but regardless of where you live – a city, the suburbs, in the country – you depend upon the mental and physical wellness of the people living in rural America for the food you eat every day. Rural communities include those who labor to raise, harvest, process, and package the foods that fill our shopping carts and satisfy our appetites.

If the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits are not extended, the effect on rural America will be severe and disproportionate, for both physical and mental health.

How severe? Nationally, allowing these credits to expire is expected to result in 4.8 million more uninsured individuals and dramatically lower ACA marketplace participation — by as much as 50 percent. This is especially consequential in mental health care, which depends heavily on coverage, particularly marketplace plans, which offer protections and essential benefits needed for access.

Rural Minds, a nonprofit advocating for better mental health services in farm country, is backing legislation it says will boost its mission.

The bipartisan EPIC Act — Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures — aims to reduce barriers to incentives for developing drugs people in rural communities can readily access.

“We’re not being extremist when we say that there is a mental health crisis in rural America,” said Don Hannaford, vice president of public policy at Rural Minds, a nonprofit advocating for rural mental health equity.

(Family Features) Rural America is experiencing a mental health emergency. For residents of rural communities, there is evidence of higher rates of mental illness compared to those in urban communities. Suicide rates are 64-68% higher in rural communities compared to urban areas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet people who live in rural areas are less likely to access mental health services.

Senators continue working on President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” and ways to cut government spending. There is concern that Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act could all become targets.

The group “Rural Minds” warns that cutbacks would hit farm country the hardest.