by Liz Carey
The Rural Mental Health Resources Hub from Mental Health America was launched this past spring. The website provides rural residents with resources to help overcome barriers to accessing mental health care, officials with the national mental health awareness nonprofit said.
Those resources include free mental health screening tests residents can do from their home or by phone, wrote America Paredes, MHA’s chief social impact officer, in an email interview with the Daily Yonder.
The tests walk people through a series of questions to assess the likelihood they may be experiencing a mental health issue such as depression, anxiety, ADHD or bipolar disorder. Once people have taken the assessments, the site also guides them toward finding help.
“Based on an individual’s screening results, they have access to a self-guided platform that helps them navigate their mental health journey based on their experience and where they are in their journey,” Paredes said.
Those in the early stages of trying to learn more about mental health issues can use an overview section called Mental Health 101, while people who have already started exploring interventions can learn about therapy and find help.
The site also serves as a resource hub for rural communities looking to serve residents who may have mental health issues.
“We hope individuals feel comfortable in accessing the free and anonymous screening tools, which may help to remove some of the fear and stigma tied to mental health experiences,” Paredes wrote. “We hope this hub serves as a first step for individuals who may feel alone in their experience, and organizations looking to support these communities by providing them with free resources.”
About 7.7 million rural adults, or about a quarter (23 percent) of all nonmetropolitan adults in the U.S., reported having mental illness in 2022, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Additionally, about 1.6 million, or nearly 5 percent, of nonmetropolitan adults reported having serious thoughts of suicide that year.
In rural communities, the suicide rate is between 18.3 and 20.5 per every 100,000 residents. In comparison, large urban communities see a rate of between 10.9 and 12.5 suicides per every 100,000 residents. Studies suggest that lack of access to mental and behavioral health care, social isolation and social-economic disparities contribute to higher suicide rates.
Those statistics, and MHA’s own research, led to the release of the hub.
“Based on research and our own data from the National Prevention And Screening Program, we knew it was important to respond to barriers that may impede access to resources and information in rural communities, including that people may not know where to find information, community, and free resources that may help them start addressing their mental health,” Paredes wrote.
MHA’s annual report, the State of Mental Health in America, ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia on mental health metrics. That report has led some of its affiliates to expand their rural outreach based on their community’s needs, she said.
In South Carolina, Joy Jay, executive director of MHA-SC, said the outreach has included using more than 50 mobile mental health clinics set up in RVs. Staffed by a nurse, a peer-support specialist and a mental health professional, each mobile clinic can provide regular support to residents or crisis support.
Once a week, the specially equipped RVs are driven into areas that may not have ready access to mental health services. They provide 15-20 minute visits with a qualified professional.
“What we found was that the best place to put them was in the parking lots of Family Dollar and Dollar General stores,” Jay said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “That’s where people go and meet. That’s where we needed to be.”
The acceptance of telehealth has helped others in rural areas reach the help they might not have otherwise had access to, Jay said.
“I would have never thought that was going to happen,” Jay said. “But it really has worked and especially in the rural emergency rooms… It has really helped because it is like a no man’s land in some of these counties.”
According to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, rural communities are losing their health care providers. Between 2009 and 2019, the number of psychiatrists in rural areas of South Carolina declined by a third, the state’s annual report on health issues found. In 14 of the state’s 46 counties, there are no psychiatrists or licensed psychologists, and another nine had only one licensed mental health professional, the South Carolina Health Professions Data Book shows.
Jay estimated that there were close to 100,000 telehealth visits for mental health issues last year, and that the system has more than 280,000 clients in its system.
From her perspective, the system is helping families get the help they need.
“We’ll have parents who get help for their kids who will say ‘We knew something was wrong, but we didn’t know how to get them help,’” she said.
Jay acknowledges there is much work to be done though. The system, she said, still isn’t great, but it’s getting better.
“I do think we’re getting somewhere though,” she said. “I couldn’t keep going if I didn’t think we were.”
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