Farmers more likely to be depressed amid harvest

There is an increased risk of depression among farmers during harvest season, and one doctor who treats a lot of them says it's important for them to take breaks to reduce stress, Julie Harker of Brownfield Agriculture News reports. Weather and other harvest-time pressures can increase farmers' stress, which can lead to increased risk of accidents and more, Harker heard from Dr. David Schwarts of Waukon, Iowa.

Schwartz said there is an increased risk of depression during this time of year, but many farmers don't seek help because they tend to think they are "tougher than that," he told Harker. Schwartz said he's seen an increase in cases of depression at his clinic this year because of the drought. He said family physicians can treat depression, but often farmers can reduce stress by "taking time out for enjoyable activities," Harker reports. (Read more) To listen to Harker's interview with Schwartz, click here.

Access and cultural issues make alcohol, prescription pills rural drugs of choice

"Alcohol and non-heroin opiates are the drugs of choice in rural populations ... while heroin and cocaine top the list in urban areas, according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration," reports Aaron Levin of Psychiatric News. Methamphetamine usage was about the same in rural and urban areas, "despite the common assumption that meth is largely a rural problem," Levin writes. Rural people also use slightly more marijuana.

Higher use of alcohol and non-heroin opiates, or prescription painkillers, in rural areas may reflect access issues, SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment director H. Wesley Clark said. "Illegal drugs may be harder to conceal in the pipeline to rural areas, or legal substances may be less stigmatized." Rural people steal about 67 percent of the prescription pills they abuse from friends or family. The rest come from doctors, University of New Mexico psychiatry professor Snehal Bhatt told Levin.

About 67 percent of rural users started using before 18, compared to 53 percent of urban users. This probably leads to higher rates of rural youth binge drinking and driving drunk, according to a University of Southern Maine study. "Rural youth, their families and peers are less likely to disapprove of youth drinking than urban youth, risk factors that are associated with greater likelihood of adolescent alcohol use," researcher John Gale wrote in the study. (Read more)

Study: Rural people more likely to get Alzheimer's

Rural residents are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's, according to a University of Edinburgh study that collected "all over the world and spanned several decades," Nikki Tucker of Medical Daily reports. Researchers say limited access to health care, exposure to unknown substances, and socioeconomic factors may lead to the increased risk.

Prior studies have analyzed the difference in what effects rural and urban areas might have on the disease, but because of debate about what constitutes "rural" and "urban," results have been deemed inconclusive. (Read more) The study was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Obama orders VA to focus on mental health, with special emphasis on rural areas

President Obama signed an executive order Friday directing the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand mental health services and suicide prevention efforts, with a special emphasis on rural areas, which provide a disproportionate share of military members, Megan McCloskey of Stars and Stripes reports. Much of the order contains initiatives that were announced earlier in the summer by the VA.

The order instructs that any veteran with suicidal thoughts be seen by a mental-health professional within 24 hours, a standard already set by the VA but rarely met, McCloskey reports. In many areas of the U.S., psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are sparse. To address this, the order directs the VA to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services to utilize community services to help meet demand. The agency will also create 15 pilot sites in underserved areas by contracting with local facilities, and it must create a plan for rural areas, which could include a mental health professional sharing program, McCloskey reports.

The VA put together a 21-person team in June to begin addressing these issues, and it has until June 2013 to hire just under 2,000 additional mental health staffers and the issues with pay, loan repayment, scholarships and partnerships with community-based providers to lure more mental health employees. (Read more)

Rural youth commit suicide twice as often as their urban counterparts; 'gun culture' blamed

Rural Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to commit suicide, reports Brian Resnick for The Atlantic. "And while youth suicides have declined across the country in recent years, suicide rates in sparsely populated areas have remained steady." Resnick writes that while it is hard to pinpoint exactly why there is such a disparity -- access to mental health treatments is a major contributor -- one reason clinicians are giving for the decided difference "may be tied to gun culture."

According to a recently published survey of Midwestern mental health clinicians, "one of the challenges rural therapists face is telling parents of troubled youths to lock up their guns." The Midwestern counselors in the survey "agreed that nearly everyone owned and used guns, and said that in a lot of their clients' homes, guns were so commonplace that they became part of the furniture." As a result, the clinicians made a point of saying that parents in rural areas often need to be reminded that guns are involved in half of all youth suicides, and that having them in the home makes it easier for young people to end their lives.