Mental Health Professional Shortage Being Felt In Rural Communities

(KNSI) — Minnesota faces a critical shortage of rural mental health workers, according to the Center for Rural Policy and Development and researchers with the School of Behavioral Health at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The two sides are now looking at options for how to fix the bottlenecks that are keeping people away from a career serving smaller communities.

Researchers say the lack of mental health providers looks similar to the physician shortage. Center Vice President of Research and Operations Marnie Werner explains that we can’t kick the can down the road any longer as “Over half of our licensed providers in Minnesota are over the age of 55, and a quarter of them are over age 65. That means we have quite a few who are set to be retiring soon, and, of course, the issue is who’s going to replace them?”

Werner says the problem is here now as suicide rates are rising faster in rural areas than in Minneapolis or other urban centers. Most small town suicide cases have never sought out a mental health professional before taking their own life. Another warning sign is that 26% of job postings for mental health workers in the state go unfilled.

There is reportedly only one mental health provider for every 741 residents in rural communities, on average.

Werner says solutions will need to be developed at the academic and professional levels. A lack of faculty is an issue, but she adds the problem goes deeper. Werner says rural opportunities are not financially attractive to students because it takes years to get licensed while they’re on the hook for student debt immediately.

“It really becomes something of a financial burden that students may or may not be willing to take. They really have to be quite dedicated to the idea of entering this field.”

Werner proposes tuition aid, grants, and scholarships early on in a student’s term at school so they can avoid going into debt for their degree in exchange for serving at rural clinics. Clinics also need to be enticed to take on students in an internship or co-op program. “Providers in the paper also talked about how hosting students in internships at their clinics were a really good way to get the students familiar with practicing in a rural area. It’s been pretty well clarified and shown in research that students are more likely to stay in practice near where they interned.”

Werner figures that will most likely require financial incentives as small practices don’t have the ability to absorb the costs that come with supervising young students.

___