Affiliated Projects

The Flex Monitoring Team (FMT) is a consortium of researchers at the Universities of Minnesota, Southern Maine, and North Carolina – Chapel Hill. The FMT is funded by the Office of Rural Health Policy, Grant No. U27RH1080 to evaluate the impact of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program in three areas:

• improving access to and the quality of health care services;
• improving the financial performance of CAHs; and
• engaging rural communities in health care system development.  

The University of Minnesota’s FMT projects focus on quality performance measures and reporting systems and quality improvement activities in Critical Access Hospitals.

Funded through the University of Minnesota Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute, the Rural Health Program aims to “positively impact, in clear and measurable ways, the health and well-being of people and communities across the state of Minnesota, and in rural communities across the country.” 

Specific initiatives of the Rural Health Program include:

• Project REACH (Rural Experts Advancing Community Health), which offers training and support to community leaders in rural Minnesota to address local public health challenges
• A Postdoctoral Program in rural health equity
• Greater engagement between University of Minnesota faculty, students, and staff doing rural-relevant work and local rural health leaders.
• Creating links between the national research and policy work at the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center with the expertise and challenges in rural communities across Minnesota

The Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA) is a multi-institution collaboration that draws together researchers from across the United States with interests in rural population health and aging. INRPHA offers funding for pilot projects, convenes a network of researchers, and provides data resources to support research that tackles pressing public health challenges for older populations in rural America. INRPHA is funded by NIA grant 1R24AG089064-01 and led by Carrie Henning-Smith (University of Minnesota), Leif Jensen (Penn State), Shannon Monnat (Syracuse University), John Green (Mississippi State University), and Lori Hunter (University of Colorado Boulder).

Farmers and ranchers experience greater mental health challenges, like stress, anxiety, depression, and suicide, compared to other occupational groups. These can lead to broad health and economic issues including reduced quality of life, increased risk of occupational injuries, increased healthcare costs, and loss of productivity and income. This research project will assess farmers’ help-seeking behaviors, the factors that shape these, and factors associated with better mental health outcomes. The specific research questions include:

• What are the help-seeking behaviors of farmers? To what extent do farmers draw on informal vs. formal support?
• How do these behaviors vary based on farmers’ demographics, farm operation characteristics, and contextual environments?
• Which behaviors and which individual and contextual determinants are associated with better mental health outcomes?

This project will be the first in the U.S. to conduct an in-depth regional assessment of farmers’ help-seeking behaviors and their connections to mental health outcomes.