Stewart-Webster Hospital closed in 2013, leaving residents in rural Richland, Georgia, without another hospital for miles. Hospitals can be a main source of behavioral health care, and options for such care become scarcer and scarcer with every closure
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AJ Willingham and Elizabeth Elkin, CNN
June 22, 2018
Almost every American will, at some point or another, face a mental health challenge. It may be related to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse or maybe something more circumstantial like grief over a loss or trouble adjusting to a life change. The CDC reports 43.4 million adults suffered from some sort of behavioral health issue in 2015 alone.
Now, imagine there wasn’t a psychiatrist or psychologist for miles around, let alone another specialist who these millions of people could trust with their specific needs. This is what life is like for many Americans in rural communities.
A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that a majority of non-metropolitan counties (65%) do not have a psychiatrist and almost half of non-metropolitan counties (47%) do not have a psychologist.
This is troubling because poor access to mental health care, according to experts, is a serious issue that overlaps with other public health crises like drug abuse and suicide.
Limited access means care is a last resort