In today’s world, mental health awareness is becoming increasingly prevalent. As disorders like anxiety and depression have become better recognized, people have also begun to examine the causes of these issues and recognize that they often stem from several conditions or situations. While research has consistently found a link between socioeconomic conditions and mental health disorders, viewing mental health issues through a purely socioeconomic lens perpetuates myths about poverty and willingness to work, as well as erasing the well-recorded phenomena of children from upper-class families struggling with clinical disorders. If we treat these issues as completely separate from the society that shaped them, we risk ignoring many of the factors at play, including one that people may not expect: climate change.

The intersection of mental health issues and climate change follows several clear patterns: the groups most targeted include racialized Black and Brown and low-income communities, who often live in areas more susceptible to climate disaster and lack the resources or economic stability to implement climate-aware infrastructure. For example, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti left devastating effects on the population that they are still struggling to recover from, even prior to another earthquake in 2021. People whose livelihoods depend on food production and agriculture are also incredibly vulnerable to climate issues and therefore the mental health effects that result from those, as their income is tied to the weather and crop growth. Other at-risk groups, particularly disabled people, struggle to see their unique relationship to climate change acknowledged because the connections between climate disasters and societal infrastructure is not widely agreed upon. Furthermore, the sense of climate grief in younger generations compounds with other crises such as widespread substance abuse, economic recessions, an increasingly competitive job market, and the COVID-19 pandemic to shape concerning trends about the prevalence of mental health issues in teens and young adults.

The mental health impacts of climate disasters are nuanced and well-recorded, both short and long-term. Climate change creates stress for many people, particularly those who live in areas vulnerable to natural disasters. Low-income communities, Indigenous people who live on reserves, and others that lack accessibility to healthcare and stable housing are targeted by climate change. Geographic location plays a role as well: air pollution, drought, forest fires, and other climate conditions can create long-term mental health issues through exposure. This fosters stressful conditions and untreated mental health issues—people may lack the financial and social means to find other methods of shelter if they are displaced by climate patterns, especially farmers and others who make their means through agriculture. The psychological and physical effects of natural disasters also cannot be overstated, traumatizing large populations and causing long-lasting PTSD. The disabilities and chronic illnesses that stem from climate disasters—such as brain damage, paralysis, and blindness—may also lead to other mental health issues as survivors have to redefine their lives and the boundaries of their abilities while grappling with new disabilities.

However, the difficulty in defining climate change and mental health lies in the complexity of the issue. The effects may be direct or indirect, long-term or short-term, and result from acute events or more prolonged climate patterns. Overall, research has consistently demonstrated links between chronic conditions like depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders, and climate phenomena. Researchers have coined several terms for these patterns, including ecoanxiety, ecological grief, and ecopsychology.

Ultimately, recognizing the impact climate change can have on mental health and wellbeing relies on raising awareness. The more the general public understands the links between these issues, the less burden victims feel to explain themselves or justify their own trauma. Furthermore, as the climate emergency becomes more pressing and young adults face the consequences of older generations’ actions, it is vital to treat yourself kindly and remember that the fault for the state of the world is not yours to shoulder. As philosopher Abigail Thorn states in her video essay Climate Grief, “One of the advantages of facing the overwhelming, grief-like nature of climate change is that once we realize it’s all one problem, we have a lot more allies than we thought.”

Works Cited

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Climate Change and Mental Health, 2019, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/climate-change-and-mental-health/.

Climate Change Is Affecting Our Mental Health, March 17, 2022, https://nihcm.org/publications/climate-change-is-affecting-our-mental-health.

Gardiner, Beth. Unequal Impact: The Deep Links Between Racism and Climate Change, https://e360.yale.edu/features/unequal-impact-the-deep-links-between-inequality-and-climate-change.

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Harrington, Samantha. How climate change affects mental health » Yale Climate Connections, February 4, 2022, http://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/02/how-climate-change-affects-mental-health/.

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Reiss, Franziska, et al. “Socioeconomic status, stressful life situations and mental health problems in children and adolescents.” PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 3, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6415852/, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0213700.

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