Course research presentation for SOCI 172: United States Population Health @ UNC; presented by Parker Jenkins.

Abstract: The mental health needs—including awareness, education, and treatment of disorders—of rural United States populations have been left behind. A chronic lack of access to adequate care for mental illnesses has left the cries of rural communities unheard and unaddressed. This issue is complex; it involves a myriad of factors that influence mental health prevalence in rural areas and decreases likelihood to seek treatment, such as access to care and resources, education and awareness, community social climates, and proximity to urban areas. To alleviate these disparities and open the door for more equal access between rural-urban areas, (1) implementation of mental health education programs within rural communities and (2) utilization of telehealth-based care to give rural areas increased access to mental health resources while addressing the factor of distance from urbanized areas, are a step in the right direction. These two efforts—one based on the social context of mental health and another based on policy and healthcare—may be useful in decreasing the disparities seen between rural-urban centers and treatment for mental illness in these underserved and outlying communities.