How does extreme weather impact mental health?
How does extreme weather impact mental health?
Monash Health Economics Professor David Johnston, Fiji National University Researcher Doctor Violet Erasito and their colleagues are not only investigating the direct impacts of weather events on mental health and wellbeing, but also the impacts of climate change-related disruption to industry, agriculture and migration within Fijian communities.
“There's evidence from high-income countries that climate-related events like hurricanes and severe storms can increase anxiety and depression in the weeks and months following, and there's also the possibility of PTSD,” Professor Johnston says.
“Highlighting the extent of these mental health impacts is the first step, and then we’re hoping to convince government and other organisations that greater action is needed.”
According to Dr Erasito, right now the biggest focus areas in climate change mitigation are food and shelter, with mental health impacts neglected due to a lack of data.
“We don't really have good data on the smaller events that have occurred. The big ones like Cyclone Winston, we do, but not the smaller ones,” she says.
The team plans to collaborate with mental health service providers in Fiji, and access their data, to assess how mental health in different parts of Fiji changes following extreme weather events.
“There is a stigma associated with mental health in many Fijian communities.”
“What we do know is based mostly on evidence from high-income countries like Australia, America and parts of Europe. We know far less about low and middle-income countries around the world and we don't know much at all from the Fijian perspective,” Professor Johnston says.
“Fiji has concentrated more on communicable diseases, and non-communicable diseases like heart disease, and mental health has been overlooked as a major public health concern until recently.”
Dr Erasito believes a key challenge in addressing this issue will be changing the attitude towards mental health in the island nation.
“There is a stigma associated with mental health in many Fijian communities. It may not be as bad as in other Pacific Island countries, but when someone has a mental health problem, they tend to think of things like witchcraft and curses, so the first people they approach would be the preachers,” Dr Erasito says.
“We have a lot of them, but unfortunately, they haven’t been given any training to help them deal with this sort of thing.”
“We are very severely understaffed and undertrained in terms of mental health resources in Fiji, so if we are able to highlight the needs quite clearly, the government will hopefully be able to better address them on a grassroots level.”
