I lived in Ohio for over twenty years. I currently work for a firm that has a base in Ohio. My boss is there. I have family and friends who live there. So, when a headline about Ohio pops up in my feed, it generally gets my attention. When it also displays exactly the kind of thing I’ve been talking about here, that goes double. This one speaks for itself on one level, but I want to dive deeper:
In Ohio, 75 out of 88 counties are mental health shortage areas, according to new study
There are so few counties with available resources to meet mental health needs that the article lists them rather than the counties where resources fall short.
That list was a little surprising to me. I expected the 13 counties with enough resources to be the large cities, and the more rural areas to be lacking, but I was wrong. Franklin, Hamilton, and Cuyahoga counties were not among the 13 counties listed. The mostly rural areas of Ohio were also not on the list.
What was obvious to me when reading the list was that most, not all, of the counties without a shortage of mental health resources were relatively suburban. They offer numerous advantages compared to urban and rural areas. Good schools, safe neighborhoods, access to healthcare of all kinds, etc. If you win the zip code lottery and find yourself born into one of these areas, there’s a fairly good chance that mental healthcare will be available for you if needed.
If you lose that lottery, well, this is just another example of the extra burdens you’ll have to deal with.
If you’re not familiar with the term zip code lottery, here’s more information on the vast difference in outcomes that can be directly tied to where you are born and grow up. For my UK readers, naturally, it’s known as the Postcode lottery. Both countries have similar experiences.