The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has established a new partnership to help improve access to healthcare screenings for people in rural areas. The Farmer Care Initiative is a joint effort from the KDA and Appalachian Regional Healthcare that will send mobile units to various locations across the Commonwealth. Officials said the initiative will allow them to meet farmers where they are rather than making them travel for basic healthcare tests.
Jonathon Shell is the Commissioner of Agriculture. He said the plan is to make it as easy as possible for people to be seen.
“This mobile screening will go to somebody's farm and then we'll have kind of a field day at the farm with various things that we’ll do with it. Part of that will be around the health screenings. There will be other opportunities potentially for it to be located at farmers markets throughout the year,” Shell said.
Shell added that while the initiative was organized for farmers, everyone in the community is welcome to come.
“When you look at it from the hospital’s perspective, these are going to be things they are doing in communities and across the state at their hospitals. So, this will be just another opportunity, another touchpoint, to potentially get to a group of people who are not getting the screenings that they need. It’s all about preventative care, if we can catch it early, we can save lives,” said Shell.
Shell added mental health will be a focus of the effort, he said that farmers operate in an industry with the highest rate of suicide in the country. Some of the services to be offered will include blood pressure tests, A1C screenings, cognitive checks, blood screenings, and more. All members of the community are welcome to use the labs. More information is available at kyagr.com.