GROUP WARNS PUBLIC HEALTH CHAOS IN THE HORIZON: Climate change to impact mental health

December 10, 2009

GROUP WARNS PUBLIC HEALTH CHAOS IN THE HORIZON
Climate change to impact mental health

Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) warns of public health chaos if public health is not given attention in the climate talks in Copenhagen.

“We have all the ingredients for public health chaos in this time of climate change: our geographical location, low health budget and poor public health performance,” said Merci Ferrer, HCWH-SEA Executive Director.

Recipe for chaos
In the proposed 2010 national budget, health accounts only 2% of the total government budget. While it may appear that the budget increased, its share of the national budget has shrunk compared to 2.2% in 2009.

“As it is, according to the latest Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Philippine Progress Report, targets related to health are the least likely to be met. Now add climate change and our public health is doomed.”

“And beyond the expected effect on physical health, the population’s mental health is also at risk,” Ferrer added.

Climate change and mental health
Recently, two leading mental health researchers warned that one important health consequence of climate change will be on mental health.

Dr. Lisa Page and Dr. Louise Howard of the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College of London reviewed several researches of scientists on the potential impacts of climate change on mental health. They concluded that climate change has the potential to have significant negative effects on global mental health.

According to the two, the effects will be felt most by those with pre-existing serious mental illness, but that there is also likely to be an increase in the overall burden of mental disorder worldwide.

“For many years, health issue has been a missing link in this climate change debate. But public health damage brought by recent typhoons that visited the country has given us a glimpse of what it would be like if health is not given importance in this talk,” said Ferrer.

“We saw the damage to infrastructure and agriculture, the resurgence of diseases… Sadly, we also had to bare witness to the shattered morale of both young and old typhoon victims.”

HCWH has been emphasizing the devastating impacts of climate change to the people’s health around the world. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday issued a declaration that called greenhouse gases a danger to public health.

According to the article, The impact of climate change on mental health (but will mental health be discussed at Copenhagen?) published in Psychological Medicine, impact to mental health may come in several forms, such as:

• Natural disasters, such as floods, cyclones and droughts, are predicted to increase as a consequence of climate change. Adverse psychiatric outcomes are well documented in the aftermaths of natural disasters and include post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and somatoform disorders.
• The needs of people with chronic mental illness have often been overlooked following disaster in favour of trauma-focused psychological interventions and yet the mentally ill occupy multiple vulnerabilities for increased mortality and morbidity at such times.
• As global temperatures increase, people with mental illness are particularly vulnerable to heat-related death. Contributing risk factors such as psychotropic medication, pre-existing respiratory and cardiovascular disease and substance misuse, are all highly prevalent in people with serious mental illness. In addition, maladaptive coping mechanisms and poor quality housing are likely to further increase vulnerability, and death by suicide may also increase above a certain temperature threshold.
• Adverse impacts such as psychological distress, anxiety and traumatic stress resulting from emerging infectious disease outbreaks are also likely to increase if the predicted outbreaks of serious infectious diseases become reality.
• Coastal change and increased flooding is expected to lead to forced mass migration and displacement, which will undoubtedly lead to more mental illness in affected population.
• Urbanization, a phenomenon which will be partially beneficial, for example by increasing opportunities for work and better access to health services, is associated with an increased incidence of schizophrenia in developed countries. In many low- and middle-income countries, mental health provision is already hugely inadequate and is unlikely to be prioritized should further economic collapse occur secondary to climate change.
• The knowledge of man-made climate change could in itself have adverse effects on individual psychological well-being.

The signs of mental torment
“What is most frightening is PGMA’s declaration that the Philippines need not insist on deep and early cuts in carbon emission citing that the climate talks may suffer the fate of the failed Doha talks,” said Ferrer.

“It is very disconcerting to hear this while you read a paper saying this decade is likely to be the hottest this year or that we expect another 3 or 4 typhoons before the years ends or that Philippines will no longer have summer season… And especially coming from the head of the country,” Ferrer added.

“We are calling on the Philippine delegation to Copenhagen to look at the current state of our country. With our limited resources, can we handle another crisis?”

HCWH is an international coalition of more than 470 organizations in 52 countries, working to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. For more information on HCWH-Southeast Asia, see www.noharm.org.ph.

Sonia G. Astudillo, +63 918 9182369, sonia@hcwh.org / Merci Ferrer, + 63 920 9056113, merci@hcwh.org