How Does Climate Change Impact Psychiatry and Our Patients?
Abstract
Urgent issues and interesting topics related to global warming’s impact on mental health will be an important focus of this year’s Annual Meeting.
The mental health consequences of the climate crisis are broad ranging, immediate, severe, pervasive, and rapidly emerging. How should psychiatrists come to grips with this situation, and how can we help?
Most Americans now acknowledge the reality of climate change and are growing increasingly alarmed about its impact on their lives and the future of life on Earth. As global warming generates numerous mental health issues, increasingly more mental health professionals are aware of and concerned about how to respond to the health risks that global warming represents now and into the future.
This year’s Annual Meeting will include numerous climate-related sessions presented by members of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance (CPA), APA’s Caucus on Climate Change and Mental Health, and others who have articulated a broad agenda in response to the climate crisis. This agenda is known by the acronym CA2RE:
Clinical: Understand, prevent, and treat mental health impacts and participate in social cohesion, facilitating community resilience, and other public health initiatives.
Administrative: Reduce carbon utilization of small practices, clinics, hospitals, and research facilities and participate in preparation and response for acute weather events and other disasters.
Advocacy: Disabuse denial, disinvest in fossil fuels, develop and disseminate climate and health impact statements and calls to action, and advise policy leaders.
Research: Promote projects to address key questions relating to climate and mental health.
Education: Provide professional training and incorporate relevant and timely content into all health professional curricula.
On the facing page are just a few of the sessions that will focus on climate change and issues related to mental health. As a member of this year’s Scientific Program Committee who reviewed session submissions, I was very pleased to discover the high number of innovative sessions selected on this topic:
“Heat Waves and Psychiatric Medications: Sickly Hot” (Saturday, April 25, 8 a.m.-9:30 a.m.): This session will focus on the management of psychiatric medications when the heat index rises. It will review thermoregulation in the body, focusing on neurotransmitter-dependent regulatory mechanisms. The impact of high temperatures on specific psychiatric medications and classes of medications that impair heat tolerance, such as anticholinergics, antipsychotics, and antidepressants, will also be reviewed. The racial, genetic, and social risk factors for heat vulnerability and issues of social justice for those most at risk will be addressed. The session will provide clinical strategies for protecting patients during heat waves and strategies for institutional preparedness at the community level.
“Climate Change and Indigenous Cultures: How Indigenous Knowledge Informs Us in Creating Resilience and Adaptation—An Open Talking Circle” (Saturday, April 25, 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.): Presenters will discuss the mental health effects of climate change and the role of psychiatry in its mitigation, with a focus on indigenous cultures and how indigenous knowledge can inform psychiatrists in response to climate change. The indigenous land base occupies 25% of settled land, yet it accounts for little contribution to global warming. Furthermore, indigenous cultural practices can address the challenges we are currently facing. Psychiatrists have an essential role in supporting these indigenous practices and can also utilize indigenous people’s expertise in mitigating the impacts of trauma from adverse weather events, drought, heat waves, wildfires, floods, and population displacements.
“Disasters and Mental Health: Helping Your Patients Deal With Adverse Effects of Climate Change, Pandemics, and Mass Violence” (Monday, April 27, 1 p.m.-5 p.m.): Climate-related disasters and mass violence are occurring with increased frequency around the world. Many individuals will manifest adverse behavioral and psychological responses. This course will review fundamental disaster principles, highlighting ways in which attendees can leverage existing clinical skills for their patients and organizations to more effectively prepare for and respond to disasters. (Courses require separate registration and fees.)
“Racism and Climate Change: Impacts on Communities of Color” (Monday, April 27, 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m.): The devastating impacts of global warming and environmental degradation raise serious general health and mental health issues. Although all global populations will be affected, the impacts are not equally distributed. Communities of color are among the first and most profoundly impacted and often have least access to resources to help cope, respond, and recover. This session will address the connection between the unconscious embedded attitudes about race and specific ways communities of color are impacted by climate disruption changes.
“Climate Grief, Anxiety, and Burnout: Climate First Responders Need Our Help and We Need Theirs” (Wednesday, April 29, 8 a.m.-9:30 a.m.): Climate “first responders” are those involved in climate science, mitigation, disaster response, planning, policy development and implementation, and activism/advocacy. They carry a psychic burden that increasingly affects their ability to do their work and need psychosocial support. This session will include in-depth discussion of techniques and resources aimed at helping us all to stay present and active in our collective efforts to save the planet and our species. ■
To learn about more Annual Meeting sessions on climate change, go to the Session Search tool on APA’s website here. The sessions will also be listed in the APA Meetings App and the program guide distributed on site.
