Presenter

The World Health Organization now considers climate change to be the #1 public health concern of this century. It's predicted to impact health in a variety of ways, and climate mental health is an emerging area within psychiatry. This talk will review the impacts of climate change on pediatric mental health, which can be broken down into 3 domains: 1) direct effects of heat on psychiatric patients who have baseline difficulties with thermoregulation, as well as heat's impacts on the prevalence of psychiatric conditions; 2) indirect effects, such as the distribution of diseases vectors and prevalence of nutritional deficiencies with neuropsychiatric sequelae; and 3) psychological effects from traumatic natural disasters and existential dread of future disasters. Marginalized, socially disadvantaged groups are thought to be particularly vulnerable, which will be discussed as well. There is also the issue of medicine's outsized contribution to climate change. The US medical system currently creates 10% of total US greenhouse gas emissions, an amount greater than most countries. Psychiatry has a role to play in trying to address the mindset/psychological defences that allow physicians to contribute so egregiously to global warming, which will be discussed.

Target Audience

This session is designed for Rhode Island physicians (primary care and specialists), psychologists, social workers, residents, fellows, medical students, and all other allied health professionals. 

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants should be better able to:

• Describe the relationship of temperature with the prevalence of mental health disorders.
• Review the neuropsychiatric sequelae of nutritional deficiencies and vector-borne illnesses secondary to climate change.
• Discuss the traumatic and existential impacts of climate change on pediatric mental health.​