Friday, December 4, 2009

Major impacts of climate change expected on mental health

EurekAlert: Leading mental health researchers are warning that some of the most important health consequences of climate change will be on mental health, yet this issue is unlikely to be given much attention at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next week. Dr Lisa Page and Dr Louise Howard from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London reviewed a range of recent research by scientists into the potential mental health impacts of climate change.

In an article published in Psychological Medicine online, the two mental health experts conclude that climate change has the potential to have significant negative effects on global mental health. These effects will be felt most by those with pre-existing serious mental illness, but that there is also likely to be an increase in the overall burden of mental disorder worldwide. …Dr Page and Dr Howard identified the following ways in which climate change is likely to impact mental health:
  • Natural disaster mortality and morbidity at such times...
  • As global temperatures increase, people with mental illness are particularly vulnerable to heat-related death. ….
  • Adverse impacts such as psychological distress, anxiety and traumatic stress resulting from emerging infectious disease outbreaks are also likely to increase if the predicted outbreaks of serious infectious diseases become reality.
  • Coastal change and increased flooding is expected to lead to forced mass migration and displacement, which will undoubtedly lead to more mental illness in affected population.
  • Urbanisation, a phenomenon which will be partially beneficial, for example by increasing opportunities for work and better access to health services, is associated with an increased incidence of schizophrenia in developed countries. …
  • The knowledge of man-made climate change could in itself have adverse effects on individual psychological well-being.
Johann Heinrich Füssli (also known as Fuseli), "The Nightmare," 1781

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