The Farm Crisis and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of the 1980s¹

Abstract

This paper examines rural/urban differences and trends in mental health during the farm crisis of the 1980s in a large panel sample from a midwestern state. A community research perspective, which attributes differences to life styles, culture, and community context, is contrasted with an economic stress perspective, which focuses on individual differences in economic circumstances as determinants of rural‐urban differences in mental health. Survey samples from 1981, 1986, and 1989 are used to examine differences among seven categories of community type. Multiple regression analysis of the trend and panel data provide support for both the individual economic distress and community context models.

Religiosity and Financial Crises in the United States

“…; Meyer and Lobao ; Ortega et al. ; Thompson and McCubbin ). All of these focus on a single state or community; none are nationwide studies.…”

Psychological Distress and Size of Place: The Epidemiology of Rural Economic Stress

“…Consistent with research that has examined mental health impacts of the farm crisis Ortega et al 1994), size of place is used as an indicator of aggregate-level exposure to economic hardship. Size of place was operationalized into six categories that represent important distinctions in the context of the economics and demographics of this region: farm households (20.6%), rural nonfarm households (14.6%), rural communities under 2,500 population (19.8%), small towns 2,500 to 9,999 (13.9%), cities 10,000 to 49,999 (14.6%), and large cities with 50,000 or more residents (16.4%).…”

“…A third wave of interviews in this study, conducted in 1989 after the peak of direct economic impacts associated with the farm crisis, produced data that suggest the mental health effects are primarily short-term for farm residents. They demonstrated improvement (relative to residents of metropolitan areas) in psychological well-being that parallels improving economic conditions Ortega et al 1994). However, these researchers noted significant variation in these patterns within rural areas.…”

After Farming: Emotional Health Trajectories of Farm, Nonfarm, and Displaced Farm Couples*

“…In later studies, the sampling frame was broadened to compare the effects of financial upheaval on rural farm and nonfarm husbands and wives (Conger and Elder 1994 ;Lorenz et al . 1993), on rural and urban men and women (Ortega et al . 1994), and on rural communities (Davidson 1990) .…”

“…In the simplest case, this can be estimated as 1 A common approach to analyzing change is based on autoregressive models, which use structural equations to examine the effects of predictor variables on outcomes after controlling for initial levels of the outcomes (Kessler and Greenberg 1981) . Autoregressive models have made useful contributions to rural sociology (Ortega et al . 1994) and to the broader stress-distress tradition (Aneshensel, Frerichs, and Huba 1984 ;Ensel and Lin 1991 ;Lin and Ensel 1989), but they also have drawn criticism for being insensitive to individual differences in change over time .…”