Barriers to Seeking Mental Health Care in Rural Communities: An Empirical Exploration in Minnesota and Wisconsin

Individuals living in primarily rural settings face large inequities in health care access, especially for mental health care. There are several possible factors that may influence an individual’s likelihood to seek out and receive mental health care, including affordability, access, awareness, and stigma. This study aims to discover the impact of these factors that may cause an individual needing emotional help to delay or postpone care, and focuses on a self-reported assessment of individuals located in the Northeast Arrowhead Region of Minnesota and Douglas County, Wisconsin to determine the strength of different barriers and differences between individuals that may explain why one individual would delay seeking out mental health care while another would seek out this care. Results show that awareness is the primary reason that individuals delay care, with access being the least common. Various demographic variables were measured, and analysis found, among other results, that non-white individuals are more likely to delay care than white individuals, Duluth respondents are more likely to delay mental health care than those in neighboring counties (including the rest of St. Louis County), and that young and middle-aged adults face higher stigma in delaying mental health care as compared to senior citizens.