Mental Health

Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and wildfires — there’s no shortage of natural disasters these days. As the world continues to heat up, leaders worldwide are working to find long-lasting solutions for climate change. But most days,…

The effects of climate change are visceral and distressing: images of thick wildfire smoke blanketing cities, reports of deadly heat waves and record flooding. Over 1 billion people globally could be displaced by events brought…

The solutions to climate change are self-evident. Opportunities for change within our systems, countries, and institutions have been clearly defined, and yet political forces stifle systemic climate action as well as individual agency. This inability…

Climate change is expected to increase the severity and frequency of wildfires and other environmental disasters in California and beyond. Wildfires, like the recent blazes in Canada that brought smoke to the Midwest and Northeast…

Mental Health Awareness Month took place in May, and two NIEHS-funded scientists are not letting the important topic go unnoticed. Together, they are spearheading a project that delves into the mental health impacts of the…

Climate change affects every aspect of our lives. From heat waves that put our health at risk, to severe storms that damage our infrastructure and homes. From the stress of rising food insecurity to the…

A record-shattering heat wave is blasting its way through much of Asia this week, following hard on another that scorched Western Europe and Northwest Africa in late April. Both augur a long, hot summer for…

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) announced bipartisan legislation Thursday aimed at improving mental health services for the impacts of climate change and natural disasters.

Helping people navigate stress brought on by a relationship is standard practice for Megan Irving, a mental health therapist in Oregon. But, Irving and mental health professionals like her are seeing more clients suffering from…

A teenager’s worries over climate change and environmental issues ultimately caused him to take his own life, according to his heartbroken sister.

Our recent research funded by EPA found that warming temperatures from climate change could result in an annual increase of up to 1,660 additional suicide cases later this century in the U.S.

It's normal to feel anxious or overwhelmed by climate change, says psychologist Renée Lertzman. Can we turn those feelings into something productive? In an affirming talk, Lertzman discusses the emotional effects of climate change and…

Tens of thousands of Americans are already experiencing the climate crisis. They've lost their homes, their pets and their loved ones.

If you look around the news and social media, you’ll find that many discussions on climate change and mental health have focused on eco-anxiety, and the problem with doom-and-gloom rhetoric.

A growing body of evidence suggests that the air we breathe could be affecting our mental as well as our physical health.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world lack reliable access to safe water — an escalating crisis with a potentially profound impact on their mental health. Why it matters: Similar to food insecurity, water…

Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and hurricanes increasingly feature in people’s lives and are predicted to become more frequent and intense in the coming decades. These events are having a significant yet often overlooked psychological impact…

In early 2020, weeks before anxiety about another crisis roiled the globe, a small group of students gathered in a room at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for a counseling session on worry and grief…

Tens of thousands of coastal Texas residents have survived repeated extreme weather events including Hurricane Harvey. For many, it has taken an emotional toll, and researchers warn that climate change could be “catastrophic” for our…

Climate change is a reality and threatens the future of the Earth. This can cause psychological impacts on some people, a phenomenon which is known as eco-anxiety. Below, we review what it is, what causes…

A group of young activists believe the answer is a global shift towards plant-based diets, and they are not afraid to make their voices heard. The campaigners disrupted a meeting at the UN climate talks…

People who have come of age in recent decades — millennials and members of Generation Z — have been exposed to a steady stream of alarming news about climate change and ecological destruction. And a…

Many people are already experiencing the effects of climate change. Eighty-five percent the global population has endured weather events made worse by rising temperatures, and more than 40% are highly vulnerable to climate change based…

Pete Knapp, 36, who lives in London, has visited North Korea, travelled overland from Kenya to Cape Town, motorcycled through Japan and Cambodia and trekked by horse through China. Until a few years ago, “I…

Something as simple as nuts. They came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving her house and traveling to a landfill, where it would remain through her lifetime and the…

A DOCTORS’ union has reminded world leaders of their “moral responsibility” to protect public health, warning that climate change is damaging patient health.

Human influence has had an unequivocal impact on Earth’s climate, causing significant changes that threaten people’s security and physical and mental health, according to a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Jess Mercer received a call from her stepmom, Annette, that morning, a little after 8 a.m. “We’re coming,” Annette said, her voice so unrecognizable it sounded foreign. Jess was at her apartment in Chico, Calif.,…

Diseases like diabetes and obesity aren’t the first thing that most people think of when considering the health impacts of climate change. But they’re among a myriad of illnesses expected to worsen as global temperatures…

It may seem obvious: Heat kills. Wildfires burn. Flooding drowns. But the sprawling health effects of a rapidly warming world can also be subtle. Heat sparks violence and disrupts sleep. Wildfire smoke can trigger respiratory…

Often, the damage that extreme weather or an environmental disaster inflicts on communities works as a one-two punch. The first punch: the actual event -- an oil spill, a hurricane, a winter storm, the lethal…

Over the past couple of weeks, it seems like climate disasters are happening everywhere we look. In the U.S. alone, a heat dome blazed in the Northwest, fires cropped up in California, New York City flooded,…

California was a refuge I always intended to return to. I grew up in the Bay Area in the 1980s and ’90s, then decamped to the East Coast for decades. In the temperate California of…

For Meg Keene, climate change is something that not only needs to be addressed but is also very difficult to cope with personally. "As someone with anxiety, I kind of try not to think too…

The climate crisis is damaging the mental health of hundreds of millions of people around the world but the huge costs are hidden, scientists have warned. Heatwaves are increasing rates of suicide, extreme weather such…

Even as we begin to emerge from the stress of the pandemic year, mental-health professionals are noting a steady uptick in a different form of anxiety—the worry over climate change and the future that it…

Climate change, refugees and mental health: Why should we care? Climate change is scientifically documented beyond reasonable doubt, is getting worse, and is a threat to our existence as humans as well as our planet…

In the wake of a fire, governments and newspapers count the damage: lives lost, acres of forest burned, homes and businesses destroyed. Those are the hard numbers, the data we have to measure the destruction.…

The psychological toll of a drumbeat of climate change-fueled disasters, now compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, is mounting and the U.S. is unprepared. These are the findings of a project by the Center for Public…

Are our brains even wired to grapple with an existential crisis like climate change? ...

People are experiencing a loss of hope in the face of the climate crisis — but mental health professionals can help find healthy ways to move...

As the climate crisis takes on more urgency, psychologists around the world are seeing an increase in the number of children sitting in their offices suffering from ‘eco-anxiety,’ which the American Psychological Association described as…

Eco-anxiety is likely to affect more and more people as the climate destabilises. Already, studies have found that 45% of children suffer lasting depression after surviving extreme weather and natural disasters. Some of that emotional…

"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores…

We are in unprecedented territory when it comes to climate change. How young people choose to tackle this problem will be a major factor that sets the world on its future path.

For the Inuit of Labrador in Canada, climate disaster has already arrived. These indigenous people form an intense bond with their land, hunting for food and fur. “People like to go out on the land…