The National Rural Health Association applauds President Barack Obama’s call for expanded access to behavioral health and substance abuse treatment in rural communities to fight the opioid abuse.
While only 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas, a disproportionate number of rural communities are struggling with prescription opioids and heroin abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rural Americans are more vulnerable to prescription painkiller abuse and overdoses, and the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths in nonmetro counties is 45 percent higher than in metro counties.
Unfortunately, rural Americans in need of substance abuse treatment services and behavioral health care will find that access to care can be limited. Even with rural telemedicine services improving access to mental health care, 60 percent of rural Americans live in a mental health professional shortage area.
NRHA calls on the president and Congress to combat this growing epidemic by expanding access to health care. The problem of access to care is not limited to substance abuse in rural America. A growing number of rural Americans do not have local access to comprehensive care and face a number of challenges when trying to access health care. Seventy-seven percent of rural counties in the U.S. are Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas while nine percent have no physicians at all. Primary care providers are the best opportunity to connect individuals to mental health care resources prior to a crisis when the criminal justice system or emergency medical providers are responding.