Rural Georgians suffering disproportionately from mental health issues

ATLANTA — Most calls from Georgians to a national mental health crisis hotline launched last year have come from rural areas of the state, particularly counties in South Georgia, a state mental health official said Thursday.

The comparatively large volume of calls from rural Georgians to the 988 number since the hotline went live in July 2022 dovetails with a significantly higher number of suicides reported in rural Georgia, Ashley Fielding, an assistant commissioner with the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, told members of the Georgia House Rural Development Council meeting at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.