Rural Mental Health Services In British Columbia

Health research in Canada has mostly focused on urban areas, often overlooking the unique issues faced by Canadians living in rural and remote areas. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the state of rural health and health care in Canada. The contributors bring insights and methodologies from multiple disciplines and community-based research projects to a full spectrum of topics: health literacy, rural health-care delivery and training, Aboriginal health, web-based services and their application, rural palliative care, and rural health research and policy. Together, these multifaceted explorations of the dynamic relationship between health and place offer a valuable resource for understanding the special, ever-changing needs of rural communities.

This book considers how rurality interacts with the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities in different regional settings. Through the use of international and comparative case studies, the book offers insight into the spatiality of mental health diagnoses, experiences, services provision and services access between and within rural areas. It is the first book to specifically address rural mental health geographies from an international perspective, and will be of interest to researchers and policymakers in rural studies, regional studies, health geography and rural mental health.

Named a 2013 Doody's Core Title! Addressing the needs of America's most underserved areas for mental health services, Rural Mental Health offers the most up-to-date, research-based information on policies and practice in rural and frontier populations. Eminent clinicians and researchers examine the complexities of improving mental health in rural practice and offer clear recommendations which can be adapted into current practice and training programs. They bring an incisive lens to factors that contribute to mental illness and prevent access to treatment areas. These include limited resources, reliance on urban models and assumptions, and pervasive misunderstanding of rural realities by policy makers. The text also addresses diversity issues in regard to rural mental health services. Key Features: Focuses on best practices and new models of service delivery in rural populations Provides clear recommendations for adapting new models in current practice and training programs Takes a micro and macro approach to service delivery models Covers contemporary practice applications with specific populations in rural areas