Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Disaster Technical Assistance Center Supplemental Research

Course overview

This publication focuses on challenges and potential solutions for delivering behavioral health care for disaster response in rural and remote areas. To Investigate this topic, the authors conducted an initial exploratory query for literature related to behavioral health in rural and remote areas. While the scope of this review included more than just opioid use disorder (OUD), and/or substance use disorder (SUD), much of the literature dealt with these concerns because they clearly demonstrate how economic and social stressors, lack of healthcare services and associated healthcare infrastructure, and the physical challenges of providing care to a population distributed over a wide geographic area all contributed to a behavioral health crisis. Among those conclusions cited in this publication was the critical importance of a thorough understanding of the community itself, and its own unique challenges when developing an appropriate behavioral health disaster response.