A growing body of evidence shows mental ill-health from climate change impacts has grown in recent years, with children and young people among those most at risk. 

To successfully address climate mental health impacts, action is required at multiple levels – individual, organisational and local community as well as state and national policy.

The report urges government to consider the cost to health and substantially increase resourcing to meet the escalating mental health impacts from worsening extreme weather.

Key findings

• ​​High temperatures alone already account for 1.8% of the annual burden of mental and behavioural disorders in Australia, and this is projected to increase by over 10% in the 2030s and between 28-49% in the 2050s.
• Hot weather and heat waves are associated with increases in emergency presentations with suicidal thoughts and behaviour, physical and sexual assaults and with domestic violence, as well as poorer learning for children.
• The awareness of the unfolding threat of climate change can in itself have mental health impacts. Responses commonly include feelings of anxiety, grief, hopelessness, frustration and anger.
• Physical health impacts of climate change include increases in a range of conditions such as heart disease, stroke and worsening of neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis, which in turn, raise rates of mental disorders.
• Indigenous people are particularly at risk due to the centrality of connection to Country and culture, which is uniquely disrupted through environmental degradation.

Recommendations

• Investment to increase workforce capacity of services and infrastructure must account for the expected increases in mental healthcare needs with climate change
• Policy responses in disaster-affected communities need to be long term, embedded and sustainable, rather than short term interventions in the immediate aftermath.
• Evidence-based suicide prevention must consider the evidence pointing to increased risk for death from suicide with hotter temperatures.
• Policy development should not consider mental health responses in isolation, but also consider the impact of climate change on other known risk factors for mental ill health.
• The adoption of health adaptation plans at all levels of health care, including the National Health and Climate Strategy, will allow for proactive rather than reactive adaptation to ongoing climate pressures. Such plans must be supported by adequate funding and workforce capacity building.