Community Attachment and Depression Among Residents in Two Rural Midwestern Communities¹

Abstract

Abstract The relationship between community attachment and depression is examined in a sample survey (N = 295) in two midwestern rural towns and their surrounding open‐country areas. When community attachment, a variable through which a rural resident's social integration into the local community affects mental health, was low, higher levels of symptoms of depression were observed. The economic viability of the local community was found to have a relationship to mean depression scores in the towns but not in the open‐country areas.