Climate change may affect mental health, but more research is needed

Among the many topics to be discussed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this month, one that is unlikely to feature is that of increasing concern about the effects on climate change on people with a history of mental health, and the potential for an increase in the overall burden of mental disorder worldwide.

An invited editorial published this month in Psychological Medicine by Cambridge University Press suggests that many of the most important health impacts of global warming will be on mental health.

The editorial highlights suggestions that climate change may adversely affect those with pre-existing mental illness and increase the vulnerability of people with mental health problems who live in the poorest countries.

To date work has been conducted almost exclusively on physical health outcomes, but in their paper Lisa Page and Louise Howard say more needs to be done to assess the potential consequences for mental health and mental health policy globally.

"Research is almost entirely lacking in this area, a situation that we would urge be addressed so that mental health policy makers can plan for the impact of climate change on mental health."

Although economic and environmental considerations will be top of the agenda at Copenhagen, the health effects of climate change have recently begun to receive more attention.

By the beginning of this decade it was estimated that in excess of 150,000 deaths per year were already occurring as a result of climate change and this number is expected to greatly expand as we approach the middle of the century.

Hurricane Katrina is an illustrative example of how medical and psychiatric care can dramatically diminish at a time when it is most needed; the mentally ill occupy multiple vulnerabilities for increased morbidity and mortality at these times.

There are also a variety of reasons to believe that people with mental illness are particularly vulnerable to heat-related death, for example during heat-waves, which as global temperatures increase are likely to become more common.