The SCCAHS Stress and Resilience Among Agricultural Workers in Vulnerable Rural Communities State of the Science Meeting was held on September 26-27, 2019 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Those who work in agriculture face many stressors, including financial uncertainty, family and relationships issues, social isolation, disaster, accidental injury, and acute and chronic diseases, that can affect their mental health. While some mental health issues, such as the high rate of farmer suicides, have been discussed widely, other mental health stressors that affect agriculture workers in vulnerable rural communities have not been discussed as broadly. Research, strategies, and policies from across disciplines are needed 1) to identify the mental health issues that farmworkers, farm operators, farm owners and others in these communities face; 2) address the social, environmental and built-environment associations with mental health in rural communities; and 3) understand the inequities in farmworker/fishery/forestry community mental health (depressive or substance use disorder rates) and how we might close these gaps to encourage individual, family, and community-level resilience.
To address this need, the Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (SCCAHS) organized a State of the Science meeting, focusing on Stress and Resilience Among Agricultural Workers in Vulnerable Rural Communities. The State of the Science meeting included a poster session featuring research on Thursday evening, followed by Friday’s one-day meeting with a crosscutting slate of researchers from various fields to present current findings and to begin the process of developing future research collaborations on stress and resilience in vulnerable rural communities.
