This proposal seeks five years of funding to establish a Center for Family Research in Rural Mental Health. The proposed Center will respond to the need for integrated programs of research that will improve understanding of rural mental health risks and identify effective responses to those risks during a period of continuing socioeconomics stress in rural America. The family focus of the Center reflects: 1) the unique importance of family ties in rural America as a primary source of support for physical and mental health maintenance; 2) the crucial role that family processes play in reducing or intensifying the adverse behavioral and emotional consequences of economic stress in contemporary rural settings; and 3) the special significance of intergenerational family relationships as a mechanism for understanding biological, psychological, social, and economic factors associated with behavioral and mental disorders for individuals of all ages. The proposed Center will build upon and extend a funded research program already underway (the Iowa Youth and Families Project, IYFP) which involves a 4- year panel study (1989-1992, yearly interviews) of 450 two-parent rural families in north-central Iowa. The panel study is based on the Family Stress Model which postulates that rural economic problems of the past decade have created chronic strains in many rural families. Such strains oftentime disrupt family relationships, heighten individual distress, and, in some cases, produce serious behavioral and emotional disorders. The Center's administrative home, Iowa State University ISU, is the land- grant institution in Iowa that has primary responsibility for research and outreach in agriculture in rural areas of the state. In addition to ISU faculty, the Center's interdisciplinary team of scientists will include faculty from other major research universities with an interest in rural mental health. Faculty expertise ranges from biological to social sciences and include academic and public sector mental health specialists. The research team will operate in a coordinated fashion to develop a program of research intended to extend application of the Family Stress Model to 1) other family systems (e.g., single-parent, extended), 2) more severe dimension of mental disorder, 3) additional levels of analysis (physiological, genetic) expected to add to the explanatory power of the model, 4) 4) the study of other high-risk rural groups (e.g., minorities), 5) the development of more cost-efficient family measurement, and 6) the development and evaluation of improved rural mental health services.
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