About

Why we exist

The Mental Health and Climate Change Research Network (the Network) is the first network of its kind to address the interconnecting mental health impacts of climate change. It was established as a direct response to requests by government, industry and the community for new knowledge about the impacts of climate change on mental health. This evidence base could subsequently inform the development, testing and implementation of interventions, tools and policies to build community resilience in a rapidly changing climate.

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.

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 most directly impacted by climate change.

Network researchers from universities and research institutions across Australia collaborate with stakeholders on innovative projects and harness transdisciplinary expertise to conduct research and generate findings about the impacts of extreme weather on mental health.

Vision and mission

Vision

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

Mission

To be a national hub for transdisciplinary expertise where researchers and stakeholders come together to co-design and conduct innovative research to improve mental health outcomes for people impacted by climate change.

We are dedicated to building resilient communities by facilitating research collaborations across disciplines and institutions, and translating ground-breaking findings into real-world interventions, tools and policies.

The Network expands opportunities for researchers and industry to access and coordinate evidence-based, holistic and locally-tailored solutions to support social and emotional wellbeing in a rapidly changing climate.

National and international research priorities

National priorities

Rapid climate change is generating increasingly frequent environmental disasters including fires, extreme heat, droughts and floods. Adversity caused by these 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 and allocation of resources, and drive continuous improvement.

The objectives of the Mental Health and Climate Change Research Network (the Network) align with state and national disaster management, mitigation and risk reduction policies, strategies and frameworks including:

The Network 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 support and build community resilience.

International priorities

The World Health Organisation 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 “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.”

The Network 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.

Research objectives

Network projects focus on one or more the following objectives:

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.

Read our latest research publications and findings.

Membership

Network researchers are based in universities and research institutions across Australia. With diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise, this transdisciplinary team collaborates on local, national and international research projects to further build an evidence base regarding mental health and climate change. Our membership encompasses early through to advanced career researchers who are dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and focused on addressing the wicked problem of climate change and its impacts on social and emotional wellbeing.

Meet our members.