Just over one-third of all children with a mental health problem received a mental health visit in the past year;
Controlling for other characteristics that affect access to care, rural children are 20% less likely to have a mental health visit than urban children;
Having Medicaid or SCHIP increases the likelihood that a child will receive services, and this is pronounced in rural areas.
This study examines rural and urban differences in the use of children's mental health services and the role that family income, health insurance, and mental health status play in explaining these differences. The analysis is based on three years of pooled data from the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF). Three research questions are examined: (1) What is the mental health need of children, age 6 to 17? (2) What percentage of children, with an identified mental health need, used a mental health service in the past year? What is the average number of mental health visits they received in the past year? (3) What role does family income and type of insurance have on the use of mental health services by children? Analyses show that rural and urban children both face substantial barriers to use of mental health services. Medicaid and SCHIP help all children, but particularly rural children who receive mental health care. This suggests that these public health insurance programs are important policy vehicles for enhancing the access of rural children to mental health care.
A logic modeling toolkit developed by the Flex Monitoring Team is available for use by state Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Programs (Flex Programs) in planning for and managing their Flex programs.
The use of the Program Logic Model (PLM) Toolkit will provide states with a tool to assist in:
Planning, managing, reporting on, and assessing their Flex Program goals, activities, and accomplishments;
Developing buy-in among key Flex Program stakeholders;
Clarifying the underlying program assumptions;
Identifying and defining measurable outcomes;
Linking state-level Flex Program strategies and activities to specific and measurable outcomes; and
Reporting program results to both internal and external stakeholders.
The PLM Toolkit is organized according to the steps in the PLM development process and guides the user through each section. Included in the Toolkit is an overview of PLMs, their component parts, and the application of the PLM framework to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the Flex Program. The bulk of the Toolkit provides a step-by-step approach to developing a Program Logic Model. The final section of the Toolkit lists resources for additional information on PLMs.
Access to substance abuse treatment is limited in rural areas by fewer treatment beds.
Less populated rural areas contain a small proportion of facilities offering a range of core services and varying levels of outpatient and intensive services.
Opiod treatment programs are nearly absent in rural areas.
It is well-established that rural communities suffer disproportionatley from a shortage of mental health professionals. Non-physician mental health professionals include psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and licensed professional counselors. This study investigates whether and to what extent licensure laws that determine the permissible scope of practice for each of these professions may affect the availability of mental health services.
This study examines licensure statutes and administrative rules for these professions in all states with at least ten percent of the population living in rural areas (total of 40 states). To determine scope of practice for each of these mental health professions, we examined their legal authority to provide five core mental health services: assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, individual and group counseling, and psychotherapy. Since prescriptive authority had not been granted to any of these professions at the time of our study, this function was excluded from our analysis.
Researchers at the University of Southern Maine analyzed the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (such as soda and sports drinks) among students in seven high schools in Maine to determine the impact of school-based restrictions on the availability of these beverages.
The authors of this article conclude that, although consumption of the sugar-sweetened beverages decreased during the 2-year study, the impact of the school-based restrictions reducing the availability of these beverages may be limited. They suggest that because consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is emerging a a potential factor in youth obesity, further research is needed with larger samples and more complex data analysis to show the efficacy of school food policies for youth especially susceptible to obesity.
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