WHO urges to incorporate climate change effects for strengthening mental health services: Report | Mental Health News
The World Health Organization (WHO), recently revealed that climate change is creating a great impact on the mental health and psychological well-being of people. Due to this, the WHO has urged to strengthen the mental health systems and services to address the challenge.
Climate change is the leading cause of many diseases, for instance, people living through extreme weather events like floods or storms often experience traumatic events like serious injury or even death. (Justin Paget/DigitalVision/Getty Images)
New Delhi: Mental health crisis has grappled the whole world and multiple factors lead to chronic mental health diseases. Some of the factors include, stress, coping abilities, chronic medical conditions, use of alcohol or drugs, loneliness or isolation and most recently climate change and rise in pollution have also been found to increase the risk of mental health problems. The World Health Organization (WHO), recently revealed that climate change is creating a great impact on the mental health and psychological well-being of people. Due to this, the WHO has urged to strengthen the mental health systems and services to address the challenge.
According to Saima Wazed, Regional Director of WHO South-East Asia, Climate change exacerbates many social, environmental and economic dangers for mental health and psychosocial well-being. The Regional Director noted that in various countries there is still a significant gap between mental health needs and the availability and accessibility of mental health systems and services. Moreover, the rise in mental health and psychological problems from climate change is putting an extra burden on the healthcare systems.
How does the climate change impact our mental health?
Climate change is the leading cause of many diseases, for instance, people living through extreme weather events like floods or storms often experience traumatic events like serious injury or even death. Reports say some people experience higher levels of psychological distress and a minority may develop more serious mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.
Whereas, according to WHO, even without climate change, the mental health situation is challenging, every year over 200,000 people die by suicide every year.
Action plan for prevention
According to the WHO report, the action plan for mental health problems may provide an array of options to expand and strengthen user-oriented community mental health services. The step advocates for updating policies and laws in line with international human rights instruments, to strengthen leadership and governance for mental health.
In 2017, the WHO South-East Asia Region followed the Male Declaration and the Framework for Action for building healthcare systems resilience to climate change.
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