WWAMI Rural Health Research Center

📢 New journal article!

Our latest study in The Journal of Rural Health examines how recent Medicare policy changes that allow marriage & family therapists (MFTs) and mental health counselors (MHCs) to bill independently may impact access to mental health care in rural communities.

In this quantitative analysis, we explored the perspectives of leaders from rural health systems and mental health organizations about how this policy may impact the accessibility of mental health services for rural Medicare beneficiaries and their communities, and identify facilitators and barriers to utilizing MFTs and MHCs in the rural behavioral health workforce.

🔗 Read more: https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.70162

Grateful to Garth Miller and Cassia Smith of WhidbeyHealth and Anna Swanson of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy for partnering with us to present at the National Rural Health Conference. Our panel highlighted practical strategies for implementing and integrating family therapists and counselors into rural health clinics. Thanks for an insightful discussion on advancing this care model!

🚨 New Policy Report: Youth Behavioral Health in the Rural U.S. 🚨

We’ve published a new policy report synthesizing findings from nine briefs on the state of child and youth behavioral health in the rural U.S. The report covers topics including the prevalence of behavioral health conditions and substance use disorder among youth, the youth behavioral health workforce, the behavioral health licensure and reimbursement policy landscape, and the provision of youth behavioral health services.

Together these findings help build a comprehensive picture of rural youth mental and behavioral health.

📊 We’ll also be presenting these findings in an upcoming June webinar hosted on the Rural Health Research Gateway—details coming soon!

Read the full report on our website and stay tuned for the webinar announcement: https://bit.ly/436SWaM

⏰ One week to go until NRHA 2026!

The WWAMI Rural Health Research Center is looking forward to joining colleagues from across the rural health community next week in San Diego for the National Rural Health Association Annual Conference (May 19–22).

📣 If you’re attending, we hope you’ll join us for our sessions, where we’ll be sharing research on:
• Policy and Implementation Strategies for Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) and Mental Health Counselor (MHC) Integration (Wed at 4pm📍in Coronado A)
• Trends in Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (Thurs at 9am📍in Balboa ABC)
• Rural Clinical Training Trends: Challenges and Solutions(Thurs at 10:45am 📍in La Jolla AB)
• Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending Across Rurality ( Thurs at 3:30pm📍in Coronado B)

Let’s meet up, exchange ideas, and keep the conversations going—at our sessions or in the hallways! See you soon, San Diego 🌴

📍 Headed to NRHA 2026 in San Diego!
In just two weeks, several of our team from the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center will be traveling to San Diego for the National Rural Health Association Annual Conference (May 19–22, 2026).
We’re excited to connect with rural health researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from across the country; and share our latest work.

✨ Our team will be presenting during the conference, including sessions on:
• Policy and Implementation Strategies for Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) and Mental Health Counselor (MHC) Integration
• Trends in Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder
• Rural Clinical Training Trends: Challenges and Solutions
• Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending Across Rurality

If you’ll be attending NRHA this year, we’d love to connect—stop by our sessions or reach out to say hello. Looking forward to rich conversations and shared learning in San Diego!

Janessa Graves recently presented a poster on the rural and urban distribution of Medicare‑enrolled opioid treatment programs at the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR) Conference. This project was a collaborative effort with the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center (HIPRC), alongside Brittany Blanchard, Megan Moore, Claire Simon, and Sara Woolcock. We appreciate the opportunity to share this work and engage with others committed to advancing violence and injury prevention research.

We will also be presenting this work & some of our other recent research projects in 2.5 weeks at the National Rural Health Association Annual Conference in San Diego. We look forward to seeing you there!

🚨New Policy Brief: Rural–Urban Youth Mental Health Workforce 🚨
Children and adolescents in rural areas face significant barriers to mental health care, driven by persistent shortages of child and youth behavioral health clinicians and uneven access to telehealth. Our latest policy brief examines how the youth behavioral health workforce is distributed across rural and urban communities in the U.S.

🔍 Key findings include:
• Rural counties have about half the per capita supply of youth behavioral health clinicians compared to urban counties.
• Nearly two-thirds of rural counties (65.1%), lacked any youth behavioral health clinician, with this proportion increasing to 87.2% in the most remote counties.
• Youth/family/school psychologists were the most prevalent youth behavioral health clinicians in rural areas (19.2 per 100,000).

📄 Read the full policy brief: https://bit.ly/4tMJqVS

🚨 New Policy Brief: Rural–Urban Differences in OUD Treatment Access 🚨

Opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to affect rural communities, where access to care is constrained by clinician shortages and long travel distances. In our latest policy brief, we use commercial insurance claims to compare how rural and urban patients with OUD receive care.

Key findings include:
• Rural patients with opioid use disorder and commercial insurance had 9.0 annual visits compared to their urban counterparts who had 10.0.
• Rural patients received more care from generalist physicians, NPs, and PAs while urban patients received more care from specialists and behavioral health professionals.
• Rural patients traveled on average more than twice as far as their urban counterparts to access care.

📄 Read the full brief here:

familymedicine.uw.edu

Two New Policy Briefs: Access to Opioid Use Disorder Care for Children and Adolescents with Commercial Insurance and Medicaid

Access to opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment remains challenging for children and adolescents. Our 2 new policy briefs examine health care use among commercially- & Medicaid-insured rural and urban children and adolescents (ages 0–17) with OUD, focusing on visit frequency and travel distance for care.

Key findings include:

🔹Nearly 10% of children and adolescents with an OUD diagnosis who were commercially-insured lived in rural counties, and about 20% of Medicaid-insured children and adolescents with an OUD diagnosis lived in a rural county.
🔹 Urban children and adolescents who were either commercially- or Medicaid-insured had slightly more health care visits on average than their rural peers.
🔹 Nurse practitioners and physician assistants played a larger role in care delivery for rural children and adolescents with commercial insurance, while urban children and adolescents with commercial insurance more often received care from specialists or behavioral health providers.
🔹 Rural children and adolescents with Medicaid insurance traveled twice as far on average to access care than their urban peers (100.7 vs. 55.5 minutes).

Read more here:
🔗Medicaid: https://bit.ly/4vxYY16
🔗Commercial: https://bit.ly/4821Qt7

familymedicine.uw.edu

New Publications from the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center
Our team has released three new data briefs examining alcohol use disorder (AUD), ma*****na use disorder (MUD), depression and suicidal thoughts/behaviors, and mental health service use among adolescents and young adults (ages 12–24) across rural and urban U.S. counties.

Key findings include:
🔹 Alcohol & Ma*****na Use Disorders
• Past-year alcohol use disorder was similar in urban (9.2%) and rural (8.5%) counties.
• Ma*****na use disorder (MUD) prevalence was 10% in both rural and urban areas—
but it varied widely by region.
🔗Full brief here: https://bit.ly/4vhMnPo

🔹 Depression & Suicidal Thoughts/Behaviors
• Rates of major depressive episodes did not differ between rural and urban adolescents (12–17). However, serious suicidal ideation and planning were significantly higher in rural counties (18.2% vs. 14.8% with serious thoughts; 8.4% vs. 6.3% with plans).
• Nationally, the highest rates of suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts were among adolescents living in larger rural counties.
🔗Full brief here: https://bit.ly/4vhMnPo

🔹 Mental Health Service Use
• Receipt of specialty mental health care among adolescents was similar in rural and urban counties (18.0% vs. 18.4%).
• Yet virtual mental health service use was lower in rural areas (8.5% vs. 11.0%).
🔗Full brief here: https://bit.ly/4vhMnPo