Back in 2022, Bluestem reviewed the literature that claimed farmers have the highest suicide rates in the country (a claim that the CDC redacted in 2018).
Thus it was good to read the first item in Christopher Ingraham's Monday Topline article at the Minnesota Reformer, Suicide in Minnesota’s rural communities:
Suicide rates rising fastest in Minnesota’s rural communities
A recent report by the Center for Rural Policy and Development finds that suicide rates are highest in Minnesota’s most rural counties and rising fastest there. The report finds that lack of access to mental health care is a key factor: In the most densely populated counties of the Twin Cities there’s a mental health practitioner for every 197 residents, but in the least populated counties the rate is one professional for every 741 residents.
Financial barriers, the high prevalence of manual labor jobs (which lead to more injuries and chronic pain), and high rates of gun ownership are also driving the disparity.
Most of the state’s Indian reservations are also located in rural areas, and suicide rates among Minnesota’s Indigenous are considerably higher than national averages.
The researchers write that Minnesota’s 988 crisis line is a resource that could help address the problem but uptake has been slowest in the rural areas that need it the most.
Here's the report:
The Suicide Epidemic in Rur... uploaded on Scribd by Sally Jo Sorensen
Reading the report, it's interesting to observe that the region with the highest suicide rate is northeastern Minnesota, which includes the Range. Those involving in mining have a higher suicide rate than those involved in farming.
The report embedded above notes on page 12:
Therefore, “rural” needs to be defined broadly. While farming is often discussed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows that the occupational sector with the highest rate of suicide is the sector that includes mining, far exceeding the rate of suicide in every other occupation. In fact, a 2021 CDC report noted that suicide rates in the Mining and Construction sector were as high as 72.0 per 100,000, while the Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting sector had a rate of 47.9 per 100,000, showing that farming communities in rural Minnesota can be quite different from communities on the Iron Range, which has an entirely different culture but is stlll rural.
And there's this on page 5:
The Minnesota Department of Health’s Suicide Prevention unit and the Minnesota Suicide
Prevention Task Force have identified a number of groups of particular concern in their State
Suicide Prevention Plan. These groups show higher than average suicide rates:
• Youth age 10-24
• Middle-age males
• Black/African Americans
• Veterans
• People with disabilities
• LGBTQ+ communities
• Native Americans
And yet the authors still play the farmer card on page 8:
Farmers
Before 2020, the suicide rate among farmers had become the focus of news stories and
discussions among policymakers on what to do. The attention disappeared at the start of the
pandemic, but the problem did not. Farmers, who make up only 1.9% of Minnesota’s population,
continue to struggle with some unique issues:
• The burden of losing the farm, not carrying on the legacy, or both.
• Volatility of the markets and as such, their income.
• Older farmers: losing a spouse. Younger farmers: relationship problems and divorce.
In cases of divorce, the family business (the farm) could be at stake.
• Chronic physical pain from a life>me of hard work.
• Watching the farming community dwindle as people continue to leave.
Epidemiologist Erik Zabel at the Minnesota Department of Health is re-examining the records on suicides in the farming community to see if they may be undercounted. By looking at deaths ruled as suicides but not identified as farmers and comparing their addresses to property tax records, Zabel can determine if that person lived on a farm. He has been able to identify more people who died by suicide but were not counted as farmers, especially women and young people.
Bluestem wonders whether similar scrutiny could be applied to other groups' identity among the suicide statistics. Not all LGBTQ+ people--particularly young people in rural communities--are part of LGBTQ+ communities or out.
Mental health care should be available to all Minnesotans, rural and urban, regardless of their occupation, not just farmers.
Perhaps I'd cut more slack with this sidenote in the report had I not read this item in the Mankato Free Press about funding for the Center For Rural Behavioral Health (the name on the right at the top of the stationery on which the embedded report is printed). In Minnesota Pork pledges funds to MSU's rural behavioral health center, that redacted myth about farmer suicide appears:
MANKATO — Minnesota State University’s Center for Rural Behavioral Health received a $300,000 pledge from Minnesota Pork, according to an announcement Wednesday.
The center, officially known as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Center for Rural Behavioral Health, will use the funds to study and share mental health resources in the agriculture industry, according to a press release.
“The agricultural community continues to experience significant challenges related to mental health,” stated Thad Shunkwiler, the center’s founding director. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agricultural industry has the highest rate of suicide when compared to all other occupations. . . .
Nope. Not true. Let's hope Minnesota's press reads the entire report.
Photo: Rural acreage in St. Louis County MN. Via Redfin.
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