Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network

UQ's Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network (MHCC-TRN) is the first to address the interconnecting social, mental, and emotional health impacts of climate change.

Our Vision

To secure the social and emotional wellbeing of rural and regional communities in an age of rapid environmental change.

In pursuing this vision, we anticipate that UQ’s Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network (MHCC-TRN) will become the hub of expertise for the social and emotional wellbeing aspects of environmental disasters related to climate change. 

In five years, we aspire to

1. Establish a strong network that supports members in creating new knowledge about the social and emotional wellbeing aspects of a changing climate. 
2. Complete pilot projects in regional Queensland to create knowledge of mental health impacts associated with natural hazards, local experiences of the current systems of support, and local views on alternative approaches to supporting mental health.
3. Develop a simulation tool that can imitate scenarios and guide investment in interventions that support mental health in communities impacted by natural hazards. The simulation tool is to be validated in numerous regional communities throughout Queensland.
4. Develop pilot interventions, working with communities in their co-design and evaluation of mental health outcomes.

Climate change-related events are known to be associated with psychological distress, worsened mental health (particularly among people with pre-existing mental health conditions), increased psychiatric hospitalisations, higher mortality among people with mental illness and heightened suicide rates.

However, compared with other health areas, mental health and climate change has received little research attention, particularly in the context of rural and regional communities who are often the ones most directly impacted by climate change.

UQ’s Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network (MHCC-TRN) is the first network of its kind to address the interconnecting mental health impacts of climate change. It was established as the direct response to requests by government, industry, and community for the creation of new knowledge about the impact of climate change on mental health and to form the base for interventions that will build community resilience. 

1. To understand the experience, distribution, and determinants of mental illness/poor mental health in the age of climate change.

• Explore, characterise and quantify the full range of (short-, medium-, and long-term) mental health outcomes and emotional experiences associated with volatile climate, and identify which are most significant for communities.
• Understand how social/political/institutional forces shape emotional wellbeing, vulnerability, and resilience.
• Develop an appropriate and validated measure of the social and wellbeing impacts of a changing climate. 

2. To conceptualise the systems underpinning mental health in an age of climate change.

• Explore, define and quantify pathways and mediating factors connecting climate change exposures and mental health outcomes.
• Qualitatively identify critical points for intervention that can be quantitatively tested.
• Develop a model, which can be iteratively refined, where the most viable points for intervention can be tested prior to implementation and where scenarios can be run to help service planning on the ground.

3. To develop interventions to harness the political importance of emotional responses to climate change, while optimising the mental health of communities in an age of climate change.

• Explore existing community and psychosocial interventions for mental health in the context of climate change, and critically analyse their inclusivity, feasibility, effectiveness, and benefits.
• Develop novel interventions where gaps exist.
• Analyse and assess the co-benefits of taking action on climate change.

4. To inductively understand and quantify the benefits of addressing the social, emotional, and mental health harms associated with climate change.

• Analyse and assess the inclusivity, feasibility, effectiveness, and benefits of existing and novel community and psychosocial interventions for social and emotional wellbeing in the context of climate change.
• Explore, understand and quantify the benefits of intervening to reduce the social and emotional effects, including mental health harms, associated with climate volatility.

5. To translate knowledge into policy and practice through research with in-built impact to improve mental health in an age of climate change.

• Work with key stakeholders to develop research-based translation strategies that consider optimal mechanisms in context for policy and practice change.
• Understand how social and emotional wellbeing shapes climate change decision-making across sectors and evaluate the impacts of climate change decision-making on mental health.

National 

Climate Change is causing Australian communities to experience more frequent environmental hazards. Adversity caused by frequent assaults drains the resilience of communities and impacts people’s mental health and ability to cope.

State and national disaster management policies and strategies are geared toward keeping people safe, as well as making communities more resilient to disaster risks and impacts. Each of these policies and strategies references the need for high-quality, independent research to provide an evidence base that can guide decision making, allocation of resources, and drive continuous improvement.

The objectives of the UQ Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network (MHCC-TRN) are well aligned with state and national disaster management, mitigation and risk reduction policies, strategies and frameworks, including:

• The 2016 Queensland Disaster Management Strategic Policy Statement
• The Queensland Disaster Resilience and Mitigation Investment Framework
• National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework

MHCC-TRN aims to create new knowledge about:

• how climate change is likely to impact mental health through more frequent natural disasters
• evidence-informed interventions that will build community resilience

International 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recognised the urgency and significance of environmental change to health and health systems through its Special Report on Health and Climate Change.

This report states that “the current situation and the challenges ahead call for a transformation in the way we manage our environment with respect to health and well-being.”

MHCC-TRN offers a mechanism for this transformation, by harnessing transdisciplinary expertise and providing opportunities for engagement with industry, government agencies and communities in the co-design and translation of research.

1. Climate change and mental health – exploring trends across Australia and the UK
Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. While certain physical health impacts of climate change are well understood, for example heat-related morbidity and mortality, the acute and chronic mental health impacts of climate change remain poorly understood. Depression is already the single largest contributor to global disability. Failing to adequately consider the climate change implications on mental health could further exacerbate and accelerate growing global trends in mental ill-health. Climate change compounds existing health inequalities with society’s vulnerable communities most at risk to climate change’s impacts on mental health. Ensuring healthy lives and wellbeing for all requires an understanding of these inequitable impacts of climate change on the mental health of marginalized and vulnerable populations. The many varied links between climate change and mental health, which are highly socially and culturally mediated, raise challenges in the understanding, operationalisation and measurement of these complex relationships. There is an urgent need for exploratory research to assess potential links between climate change and mental health; and to progress the field through proposing evidence-informed scales and measurements of mental health impacts in the face of climate change. Current discussions on appropriate climate change related mental health indicators are deficit focused, with suicide rates proposed as the potential indicator. To adequately assess the impact of climate change on mental health, a more comprehensive conceptualisation of mental health and imagining of appropriate measurement tools is required. This project will use existing data sources (such as national surveys) to explore trends in climate change related mental health illnesses, inequalities and resiliencies across geography, class and wealth. Population data from Australia and the United Kingdom will be explored with particular focus given to data representing communities vulnerable in both environmental and health terms, such as Indigenous, rural, remote and socio-economically deprived communities and young people. This exploration will shed light on the links between climate change and mental health and provide insight on practical and appropriate indicators for adequately assessing this relationship.

PhD Candidate: Monika Walia
Supervisor: Dr Anne Cleary,  anne.cleary@uq.edu.au

2. Adaptive distress or maladaptive disconnect? How individuals cope with the threat of climate change.
As climate change progresses there has been a push to find new language to describe how individuals are experiencing the threat of climate change. One of the terms which has emerged is ‘ecoanxiety’. Broadly, ecoanxiety refers to individuals’ feelings of distress watching the threat of climate change unfold. Previous research has focussed on the links between experiences of natural disasters and mental illness. However, new research is emerging showing that for some the mere awareness of climate change and belief that nothing is being done to stop it, is causing impairments in functioning and reduced wellbeing. Little is known about what factors cause ecoanxiety, how ecoanxiety affects environmental behaviours, and how best to cope with feelings of ecoanxiety. Due to the nebulous and complex nature of climate change, traditional coping theories are not necessarily applicable or may miss a degree of nuance. In this PhD project, Carla aims to build on this new research area to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents, characteristics and consequences of ecoanxiety. Secondly, she aims to draw on these understandings to create communication interventions targeted at helping individuals’ psychological adaptation to climate change. 

PHD Candidate: Carla Magi-Prowse
Supervisor: Associate Professor Kelly Fielding, k.fielding@uq.edu.au

3. Heat island impacts and community health: The importance of Urban form

PhD Candidate: Renuka Bhoge
Supervisor: Dr Sara Alidoust, s.alidoust@uq.edu.au

4. The effects of climate change on youth mental health

 ‘Climate change anxiety’ refers to the way in which humans fear, dread and perceive the threat of climate change. Evidence linking climate anxiety, pro-environmental behaviour and coping, suggest that climate anxiety is an adaptive response to a realistic threat. Climate anxiety does, however, hold the potential to become clinically maladaptive and lead to chronic worry, restlessness, irritability, panic and sleep disturbance (Clayton & Karazsia, 2020). Despite this growing body of literature, there is little discussion on how children and adolescents may uniquely experience and be disposed to climate anxiety. Young people will be more physically, developmentally, and psychologically vulnerable to the effects of climate change across the course of their lifetime. The overarching aim of this PhD project is to explore the experience of climate anxiety in children and adolescents. Studies conducted as part of this project will use qualitative and quantitative methods to;

1. Define and measure climate anxiety for children and adolescents;
2. Examine the relationship between climate anxiety with other psychological responses to climate change as well as other mental disorders; 
3. Identify factors that are correlated with climate anxiety, and;
4. Delineate adaptive and maladaptive forms of climate anxiety.

This research is imperative to understanding how young people are responding to climate change, as well as how best to provide support in ways that are protective of youth mental health.

PhD Candidate: Tara Crandon
Supervisors: Dr Hannah Thomas, hannah.thomas@uq.edu.au; Professor James Scott, james.scott@qimrberghofer.edu.au; Associate Professor Fiona Charlson, f.charlson@uq.edu.au

5. Mental Health and Climate Change Policy Review

This project aims to explore the extent to which the mental health impacts of climate change are addressed by policies related to health, climate chnge, and disaster and emergency management. This involves the development of a policy assessment framework based on three critical dimensions of climate change preparedness - awareness, analysis, and action. The indicators within this framework encompass awareness of climate change and mental health concepts and risks, analysis of the impacts and vulnerabilities, and the extent of actions taken to address the risks.Policy documents from the federnal and state level are being analysed, alongside a case-study focussing on climate change and disaster-related policies for local governments in Queensland using an adapted version of the framework. The results of these analyses will reveal the degree of preparedness for the impacts of climate change on mental health in Australia and help identify policy gaps as well as socio-political infrastructures to support actions and strategies, which help inform future policy planning.

Project lead:

Suhailah Ali

Partners: Institute of Social Science Research, The Unversity of Queensland; Climate and Health Alliance

6. Keeping same on a changing climate: assessing Australian Psychologists' preparedness, exposure to climate-health impacts, and willingness and barriers to acting on climate change

This research focuses on the impacts of climate change in the mental health sector by analysing Australian Psychologists' preparedness, exposure to climate-health impacts, and willingness and barriers to acting on climate change. The objective is to help identify gaps in knowledge and training needs for the mental health workforce in Australia.

PhD candidate: Gabriela Stilita

Supervisors: Associate Professor Fiona Charlson, f.charlson@uq.edu.au

Higher Degree by Research Topics

The Network offers opportunities for those intending to complete a Higher Degree by Research (HDR). Currently available topics of interest are described below, however we encourage you to reach out if you have a specific area of interest and want to develop your own research topic proposal. Topics must be situated within the context of social and emotional wellbeing of communities that are impacted by climate change related extreme weather events. 

To enquire, email Associate Professor Fiona Charlson at f.charlson@uq.edu.au with your topic and academic CV.

HDR Formal Application and Scholarships

Please note that formal applications for Higher Degrees by Research and enquiries for scholarships must be addressed directly with the University of Queensland's Graduate School.

Currently Available HDR Topics

Exploring the development of community-based interventions to mitigate the mental health impacts of climate change

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. While certain physical health impacts of climate change are well understood, for example heat-related morbidity and mortality, the acute and chronic mental health impacts of climate change remain poorly understood. Depressive and anxiety disorders are already some of the largest contributors to global disability. Failing to adequately consider the climate change implications on mental health could further exacerbate and accelerate growing global trends in mental ill-health.

The many varied links between climate change and mental health, which are highly socially and economically mediated, raise challenges in the understanding, operationalisation and measurement of these complex relationships. This impedes our understanding of how to design and deliver effective interventions that reduce the mental health impacts of climate change and secure community social and emotional wellbeing. This PhD research will address these gaps through exploring the development of interventions that aim to mitigate the mental health impacts of climate change.

This PhD research will be conducted in partnership with the UQ Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network and supervised by Associate Professor Fiona Charlson, School of Public Health, and by Dr Anne Cleary, Institute for Social Science Research.

Contact: Fiona Charlson, f.charlson@uq.edu.au.

Climate Change and its Health Impacts in Cities - a range of available projects

The projects focus on the health impacts of climate change on vulnerable community groups, including older people.

Questions about these projects should be directed to Dr Sara Alidoust, s.alidoust@uq.edu.au