A Survey of Farm Households Finds That the Stress of Farm Life is Felt by Teens as Well as Adults.

When farm life causes stress, young people feel it along with the adults.

That correlation was noted in a survey of farm families, conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin.

The ongoing five-year survey collects data through online surveys of members of U.S. farm households. Findings from the survey’s first year were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.

In its first year, the survey found that about 60% of adults in 122 farm households met the criteria for at least mild depression, and 55% met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. In comparison, the percentage of the general population reporting symptoms of depression is around 17 to 18%, according to University of Illinois Agriculture and Biological Engineering Professor Josie Rudolphi.

But the survey is also interviewing teenagers aged 13 to 17 in those same farm households. And it found that households where adults reported symptoms of depression or anxiety, also had teens who reported those symptoms (although teens’ reporting of symptoms of anxiety were lower, at around 45%).

That strong correlation between adults and teens in the same households is one of the survey’s most important findings, according to Rudolphi. She is conducting the survey along with computer research scientist Richard Berg of the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute.


Source: illinoisnewsroom.org

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