More rural families in Iowa are experiencing stresses and symptoms connected with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder than New Yorkers after the Sept.

Saturday, January 26, 2002

More rural families in Iowa are experiencing stresses and symptoms connected with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder than New Yorkers after the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center.

Those are the findings of a long-term study of rural communities being done by researchers at Iowa State University, said Ken Zimmerman, a counselor at the Mental Health Center of North Iowa in Mason City.

As part of the Extension meeting in Northwood, Zimmerman presented information about stress, depression and suicide in rural communities to the ag producers and others gathered. One of his goals is to make the case among rural people that mental health care should be a concern for people like those attending Friday’s meeting.

One of the facts he brought up was that suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for adults in the United States, and that most of the men at the meeting fit the profile of those most likely to commit suicide: white men, over 40, working in a job with high levels of uncertainty and diminishing returns on satisfaction.

Zimmerman attended the meeting as part of a partnership between mental health professionals and the Iowa Extension Service. He figures his work is at least as important as the workshops on pesticide application that were held earlier that day, because a farmer’s suicide is one way to guarantee no yields at harvest.

Though he sees rural life as stressful, he isn’t comfortable talking about a farm &uot;crisis&uot; in the Midwest, as if it something that happened abruptly, like the attacks in New York.

&uot;The farm situation is not a crisis, it’s a long-term, chronic adjustment that plays itself out in the lives of rural people,&uot; Zimmerman said.

One positive thing that has been discovered is that people who seek treatment early have a much better chance of full recovery. And individuals don’t have to be treated with medication to recover from depression, he said.

&uot;Researchers are finding out that just talking about things can sometimes have as profound an effect on the brain as medications,&uot; said Zimmerman.

Zimmerman has been working as a counselor since 1971, and has been working with rural families out of the center in Mason City since 1979. He attends many functions and conducts workshops where the focus is on rural people and mental health care issues.