Does Climate Change Impacts Mental Health?

 

Changes in air quality caused by greenhouse gas emissions show how the environment and one's mental well-being are closely intertwined. Pollutants in the air have a direct impact on both physical and mental health. According to research published in February 2022, exposure to air pollution is linked to a higher degree of mental symptoms in male veterans. Children who grow up in areas where air pollution has been present for a long time are at a higher risk of developing abnormally.

According to psychiatry, extreme weather occurrences and climate-related calamities may leave an indelible impression on a child's development and are best classed as unfavourable childhood experiences. Research on the impacts of climate change on human development will be accelerated as a result of this awareness. It is long past time for medical personnel to learn about the consequences of climate change on physical and mental health, and it will improve the treatment they deliver.

Of course, mental illness is caused by a variety of factors, including climate change. Mental disease has a multifaceted aetiology, involving genetic, epigenetic, and social factors. However, ignoring mounting evidence that climate-related events set the stage for personal trauma is shortsighted, and assuming that the increased demand for mental health services can be met in the future with more psychiatrists or behavioural health providers is foolish in our already overburdened system.

Climate change and its ramifications—flooding, wildfires, heat, and so on—pose a serious threat not just to the planet but also to the mental well-being of those who live on it. It's past time for mental health consequences to being recognised as a fundamental driver of the policy change and climate action, rather than an afterthought.