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Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Project Examples: Stigma

Effective Examples

Updated/reviewed April 2025

  • Need: To support parents whose children have been removed from the home so that the parents can make the changes needed for the children to return safely home.
  • Intervention: A statewide program in Iowa pairs these parents with mentors who have successfully navigated their own child welfare cases.
  • Results: Participants' children were more likely to return home than non-participants' children, and participants were less likely to have another child removal within a year of the child coming home.

Other Project Examples

Updated/reviewed December 2024

  • Need: To reduce stigma around mental illness and substance use in North Carolina.
  • Intervention: The Beaufort County Behavioral Health Task Force created the Riverfront Talks: Substance Matters podcast to interview people with lived experience.
  • Results: As of December 2024, the podcast has 11 episodes.

Added November 2024

  • Need: To reduce barriers to employment for people in substance use recovery in Marinette County, Wisconsin.
  • Intervention: An initiative in which community members in recovery train local employers in recovery friendly workplace guidelines and provide recovery coaching to employees.
  • Results: One business in Marinette County has been fully trained, and more than 50 people in recovery have been referred to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's Worker Connection Program in the program's first year.

Added June 2024

  • Need: To expand access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) across the state of Pennsylvania.
  • Intervention: An initiative formed to provide technical assistance aimed at improving MOUD treatment capacity and quality at healthcare sites across urban and rural Pennsylvania.
  • Results: In 2023, 108 providers engaged with the program, treating a total of 5,185 individuals with MOUD. Currently, the program engages partners in 20 Pennsylvania counties – serving rural populations in Crawford, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Butler, and Cambria counties.
funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Added December 2023

  • Need: To address high rates of substance use in Princeton, Illinois and the surrounding area.
  • Intervention: The Arukah Institute, a local nonprofit organization providing mental health services, adapted a statewide model to provide support and a safe space for people in need of substance use resources.
  • Results: The Living Room program had 1,485 visits in its first year, with 100% of clients served by recovery support specialists.

Updated/reviewed October 2023

  • Need: Men in the agriculture industry face high suicide rates due to factors including long hours, geographic isolation, lack of social opportunities, and stigma surrounding mental health care.
  • Intervention: The Coffee Break Project, a program led by Valley-Wide Health Systems, Inc. in southeastern Colorado, encourages mental health check-ins for farmers and ranchers through a public awareness campaign and casual coffee gatherings that utilize COMET, an intervention model developed specifically for rural communities.
  • Results: Between eight and 20 people typically attend each coffee gathering.

For examples from other sources, see: