Mental Health on the High Plains
Agricultural workers in rural communities endure a lot every day to supply food to the world. As one official put it, they're "absorbing a lot of the shocks to the system for us: hailstorms, pest outbreaks, drought, markets - they're adjusting for all that to keep food production moving."
Their extremely hard and financially difficult work in a severe drought, a pride in self-sufficiency that has stigmatized mental health, little access to health providers in rural areas and slashed public health budgets have led to a mental health crisis in rural communities, all compounded by the pandemic. And the trouble is, this isn't new.
I pitched, co-reported and photographed this story for Kaiser Health News and People.com alongside reporter Vignesh Ramachandran.