Daily Digest: Mental health on the farm
Good morning, and happy Tuesday. Here's the Digest.
1. People in rural Minnesota have less access to medical care, including mental health services than other Minnesotans. In urban areas and small towns, each primary care doctor serves about 1,000 people. But in rural parts of the state, each doctor serves about 2,700 people, according to a 2017 report from the Minnesota Department of Health. Farmers are also at greater risk of suicide than other professions, which has been associated with a lack of access to mental health services. A study of suicide deaths for farmers found that American farmers in the early 1990s to 2010 had a suicide rate three to five times higher than other occupations. (MPR News)
2. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter called on city residents Monday to rededicate themselves to building a safe and promising city, serving in the model of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Carter addressed a crowd of hundreds on hand for the state's official observance of the holiday honoring King. "We have work to do to create a fair, local economy that works for all of our families," said Carter in his keynote address at the 32nd annual Martin Luther King Day celebration at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. He repeated his intention to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour and to reset the relationship between the city's police and residents, vowing to build on "a sacred trust that flows between our police officers and our neighbors." Carter also said he wants to get more St. Paul residents to participate in local government processes. (MPR News)
3. Only a small portion of Minnesota adults said that most of their friends or neighbors were different races when MPR News and its sister organization, the APM Research Lab, asked this question in the late summer of 2017. Around 40 percent of the state — 1.5 million Minnesota adults — say hardly any or none of their friends are a different race. The finding from the Ground Level survey doesn't surprise experts — and not just because Minnesota is around 80 percent white. "So much of that makes sense when you think about the ways in which people hunker down into communities of sameness," said Neeraj Mehta, director of community programs at the University of Minnesota's Center of Urban and Regional Affairs. (MPR News)
4. While most Minnesotans believe the accusations of sexual misconduct against former Sen. Al Franken, many think he should not have resigned. That's according to the latest Star Tribune poll of 800 registered voters. Sixty percent said they believed that Franken did grope or harass multiple women. But only 41 percent said he should have resigned, while 48 percent said he should not have. The rest, 11 percent, were unsure. The poll was taken Jan. 8-10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points (Star Tribune)
5. Republican State Sen. Karin Housley kicked off her U.S. Senate campaign Monday squarely focused on the November election, even as other Republicans await word from former Gov. Tim Pawlenty on a potential bid. The stakes are high in the unexpected race for the Senate seat vacated by Al Franken, who resigned earlier this month following sexual misconduct allegations. New Sen. Tina Smith, the Democrat appointed to replace him, is likely to go unchallenged in her party as Democrats face a tough path to reclaiming the Senate majority. Housley is the lone Republican in the race, having announced her campaign within days of Franken's December announcement that he would resign. While GOP operatives in Minnesota and Washington prize Pawlenty's fundraising prowess for a 10-month campaign, he's kept largely silent about the race, and no other Republicans have expressed a whiff of interest. (AP)
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