Climate Change, Pollution, Deforestation, and Mental Health: Research Trends, Gaps, and Ethical Considerations. (1st November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wigand, Moritz E.; Timmermann, Cristian; Scherp, Ansgar; Becker, Thomas; Steger, Florian
• Is Part Of: GeoHealth. Volume 6:Number 11(2022)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2022-11-01
• Subjects: climate change -- mental health -- data mining -- medical ethics -- contamination -- environmental justice; Environmental health -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 616.98
• DOI: 10.1029/2022GH000632
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2471-1403

Abstract

Abstract: Climate change, pollution, and deforestation have a negative impact on global mental health. There is an environmental justice dimension to this challenge as wealthy people and high‐income countries are major contributors to climate change and pollution, while poor people and low‐income countries are heavily affected by the consequences. Using state‐of‐the art data mining, we analyzed and visualized the global research landscape on mental health, climate change, pollution and deforestation over a 15‐year period. Metadata of papers were exported from PubMed®, and both relevance and relatedness of terms in different time frames were computed using VOSviewer. Co‐occurrence graphs were used to visualize results. The development of exemplary terms over time was plotted separately. The number of research papers on mental health and environmental challenges is growing in a linear fashion. Major topics are climate change, chemical pollution, including psychiatric medication in wastewater, and neurobiological effects. Research on specific psychiatric syndromes and diseases, particularly on their ethical and social aspects is less prominent. There is a growing body of research literature on links between mental health, climate change, pollution, and deforestation. This research provides a graphic overview to mental healthcare professionals and political stakeholders. Social and ethical aspects of the climate change‐mental health link have been neglected, and more research is needed. Plain Language Summary: Climate change, deforestation, and pollution are having a major effect on mental health all around the world. Yet there are huge disparities on how these negative consequences affect people within and between countries. We analyzed large databases of research articles using digital tools (data mining) to uncover the direction of scientific research and areas that have received less scholarly attention. While research linking climate change to mental health issues is expanding, a detailed examination of the social justice dimension of how climate change and pollution are affecting the different groups of people is still relatively scarce. We provide a graphical overview of the most important research keywords of the last 15 years. Key Points: Climate change, pollution, and deforestation threaten global mental health and need to be addressed as a mental health issue Data mining can help to uncover trends and gaps in research Mental health research on climate change and pollution is growing, while research linking these to environmental injustice is less prominent