THE FARM CRISIS AND MENTAL-HEALTH - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF THE 1980S

This paper examines rural/urban differences and trends in mental healt h during the farm crisis of the 1980s in a large panel sample from a m idwestern state. A community research perspective, which attributes di fferences to life styles, culture, and community context, is contraste d with an economic stress perspective, which focuses on individual dif ferences in economic circumstances as determinants of rural-urban diff erences in mental health. Survey samples from 1981, 1986, and 1989 are used to examine differences among seven categories of community type. Multiple regression analysis of the trend and panel data provide supp ort for both the individual economic distress and community context mo dels.