For farmers, their livelihood and even mental well-being can depend on the weather. Now, a new study has linked the two without question. It has found that the levels of psychological stress among U.S. farmers is tied closely to the weather, specifically periods of drought.
New data shows that the presence of rain is not only important to the economic health of rural communities, but also to the mental health of those communities. The NIDIS co-funded a study to examine this relationship.
According to Drought.gov, "The study found that while many aspects of farming were associated with increased stress, drought was a major contributor, with impacts greater than those attributed to other factors. For example, increased job stress from drought was four times greater than increased job stress from having pain in multiple body parts."
Within the study, participating farmers were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), which is a metric that is used to measure the positive or negative effect of external factors on people.
The findings of the study showed that farmers with negative affect were generally in the population of the highest-stress farmers in the study. However, the negative affect that was considered to be a "baseline" level was over two times smaller than the stress that was observed in farmers that were currently going through a period of drought.
Other portions of the study confirmed that drought-related stress was especially strong during the growing season. The data showed that drought conditions that occurred during the growing season were strong drivers of job-related stress. Meanwhile, droughts that occurred during non-growing seasons did not cause drastically increased levels of stress.
Jesse Berman, the leader of the study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said, "Incorporating health into drought early warning plans is a growing priority of the National Integrated Drought Information System. Studies that evaluate health risks from extreme weather are incredibly important for protecting both current and future farming populations that suffer disproportionately from natural disaster events."
The study made clear that public health should take job-related stress for farmers into account when planning for and responding to periods of drought.
