GROW: Growing Resilience, Opportunity, and Wellbeing in agriculture—Assessing stress, coping, and mental health needs among Arizona agricultural producers

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: display, extension, farmer to farmer, networking, participatory research, other
• Sustainable Communities: partnerships, quality of life, social networks, social psychological indicators

Farmers and ranchers play critical roles in community, economic, and environmental health as producers of food and stewards of lands, yet they are negatively impacted by unique stressors that are often outside of their control. Farming is not just an occupation, it is also a lifestyle and many agricultural producers reside in rural areas where mental health care is lacking and often tied to social stigma, which can create barriers for seeking care. Though there is research describing the impacts of farm stress in other regions of the United States, Arizona producers remain an understudied population.

How do farmers and ranchers in Arizona cope with stress on the farm to foster resilience and remain in agriculture? Gathering the data necessary to more fully understand the unique stress factors experienced by agricultural producers, and how they are coping, is a pivotal step toward informing effective and culturally grounded interventions that reduce stigma related to mental health, minimize effects of stress, and foster resilience among this population.

This project will utilize a Community Based Participatory Research framework and will include Arizona producers throughout the research and education process. It will be implemented in three phases: 1) Qualitative methods will be used to identify sources of stress and coping strategies for  agricultural producers in Arizona using 20-30 in-depth interviews and; 2) Data gathered will inform targeted outreach materials that reduce stigma, foster resilience, and promote healthy stress management techniques for farmers and ranchers and 3) Results and outreach materials will be disseminated at agriculturally focused conferences and events. Expected long-term outcomes are to put findings into action through informing future development of co-designed/user-centered programs that support wellness for Arizona’s farming population.

Research Objective 1: As a project team, develop interview questions to gather information on sources of stress and coping mechanisms used by agricultural producers in Arizona and conduct 20-30 semi-structured interviews.

Research Objective 2: Thematically analyze qualitative interview data until data saturation is reached to guide the co-development of outreach materials that support the mental health of producers in Arizona. 

Educational Objective 1: Disseminate findings directly to interview participants through the creation of 1 research summary document that explains the key conclusions of the study.

Educational Objective 2: Present findings to key stakeholders at 3 conferences focused on agriculture and rural health, bringing awareness to the challenges impacting agriculturalists in Arizona.

Educational Objective 3: Reduce stigma surrounding stress and mental health, while sharing stories of resilience through 3 wellness presentations at 3 conferences targeting Arizona producers.