Experts Explore Psychological Impacts of Climate Change
Mental Health to Decline With Climate Change
A rise in natural disasters will lead to more cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
Discovery.com, Dec 10, 2009
Deadly heat waves, home-wrecking hurricanes,
neighborhood-scorching wildfires: When you stop to think about it,
global warming can be downright depressing.
Now, scientists are starting to validate that feeling.
According to accumulating evidence, climate
change won't just trigger new cases of stress, anxiety and depression.
People who already have schizophrenia and other serious psychological
problems will probably suffer most in the aftermath of natural
disasters and extreme weather events.
"When these events happen, people with
pre-established mental illnesses often have more extreme difficulty
coping than the rest of the population," said Lisa Page, a psychiatrist
at King's College London. "This is an area we maybe need to think about
a little more seriously."
In public health circles and even in climate
talks, scientists have looked a lot at how climate change might affect
physical health, by for example, spurring the spread of malaria, dengue
fever and other infectious diseases.
For the most part, though, the experts have made
only vague references to the link between climate change and mental
health, even though evidence for such connections is starting to pile
up. In a review of the published literature, Page and a colleague found
a variety of examples.
After natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina,
for instance, studies have clearly documented a rise in post-traumatic
stress disorder, major depression and other mental disorders. The same
symptoms occur during infectious disease outbreaks.
In the future, climate models predict more
destructive storms, more floods, more droughts and more diseases. In
turn, the new study suggests, more psychological crises will follow.
Heat waves -- like the one that killed some
70,000 people in Europe in the summer of 2003 -- will also happen more
frequently, last longer and be more severe in coming years. The
mentally ill will be hardest hit by these events, Page suspects,
because they're more likely to live in substandard housing without air
conditioning or other amenities.
Many psychotropic medications also increase the
risk of dying from heat-related complications. So does substance abuse,
which is common among people with mental illnesses.
People with pre-existing mental challenges will
probably also have an extra hard time dealing with other forecasted
consequences of climate change, including the sinking of coastlines and
mass migration away from flooded shores.
Then, there's the general sense of sadness that
can come from reading about climate change again and again, and
recognizing that the world is changing.
"It's when you realize things aren't the way
they used to be," said Giovanni Leonardi, an epidemiologist at the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "It's a sad state to go
outside and it's sunny and you worry about it. We didn't used to worry
about it being sunny."
Acknowledging the mental challenges involved in climate change should hopefully help public health officials prepare for them.
"Recognition of the issue is the first step
towards addressing the problem," Leonardi said. "It's the first step
toward helping ourselves to cope with it."
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