10 July 2009

Farmers feeling the fall-out from the big dry

The continuing drought throughout much of southeast Australia and parts of central Australia is having a significant impact on the mental health of farmers and those out of work, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

The Institute is releasing more information from its groundbreaking 2008 study in which 8,000 people were asked about how they’re coping with drought.

The results reveal that the drought’s effects are being felt strongly in the community especially in areas where the drought has been the most severe.

“Around twelve percent of people who were currently in an area affected by drought have mental health problems compared to seven percent in areas which haven’t been hit by drought in the last three years,” said the Institute’s deputy director Dr Matthew Gray.

“There is a clear and definite link between the proportion of people with mental health problems and drought. Essentially mental health problems have doubled where the shadow of drought has fallen compared to people in areas not in drought over the last few years,” Dr Gray said.

The study found that 17 percent of farmers currently in drought had a mental health problem, along with 11 percent of farm managers, increasing to 21 percent of people who were out of work in areas heavily reliant on agriculture.

“We’d asked people whether in the last 12 months they’d been prescribed drugs like antidepressants by a doctor to help cope with stress. It emerged that almost 12 percent of people currently living through a drought were using some sort of medication along these lines. If you were out of a job that almost doubled to 23 percent,” Dr Gray said.

But when it comes to alcohol use, the study concludes that the worse the drought, the less people are drinking.

“If anything there were lower rates of high or hazardous drinking where drought hit hardest, especially among women. This may be because money is tight but also suggests that people are resisting the urge to turn to the bottle as a means of getting through stressful times,” Dr Gray said.

“Keeping track of the impact of the drought is really important so that we gain an understanding of how many people are truly affected by a changing climate and in what ways. Further work in the area of farm poverty is also going to be important so support measures are there for farm families,” Dr Gray said.

 

Conference presentation: The impact of drought on mental health and alcohol use (PDF 6.5 MB)

 

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