Climate change represents a defining health challenge of our era, with profound mental health consequences. As future physicians, you will care for patients experiencing the full spectrum of climate-related psychological impacts.
You Should Now Be Able To:
- Explain Mental Health Consequences
- Climate disasters produce PTSD, depression, anxiety, and chronic stress^6,7,9,10^
- Eco-anxiety and solastalgia represent new forms of climate-related distress^13,28^
- Impacts occur through direct trauma, indirect stressors, and existential concerns^5^
- The “second storm” of mental health impacts often equals or exceeds physical impacts^23^
- Describe Inequitable Burden
- Marginalized communities face disproportionate impacts due to differential exposure, vulnerability, and recovery capacity^43,44^
- Vulnerable groups include communities of color, low-income populations, displaced persons, Indigenous peoples, children, older adults, those with pre-existing mental illness, outdoor workers, immigrants, and rural populations^4,5,24,32,34,37,52^
- Climate displacement creates severe mental health consequences^20^
- This is a justice issue: those who contributed least to climate change suffer most
- Describe Surveillance Approaches
- Multiple data sources track climate-related mental health impacts^31,32^
- Effective systems integrate traditional surveillance, population surveys, and real-time monitoring
- Surveillance must capture disparities through disaggregated data and equity-focused design
- Your clinical documentation contributes to surveillance efforts
- Identify Physician-Led Interventions
- Individual interventions include screening with validated tools, evidence-based treatments, and addressing eco-anxiety appropriately^47,48,49^
- Psychological First Aid is the standard acute disaster intervention^38^
- Community resilience is protective, and physicians can foster it through social prescriptions and advocacy^39,40,41^
- Physicians can advocate for climate action, mental health systems strengthening, and health equity
Integrating Climate Considerations into Practice
In the History:
- Ask about environmental exposures and climate-related experiences
- Include questions about displacement, disasters, environmental change
- Screen for eco-anxiety, particularly in adolescents and young adults
- Ask about occupation to identify outdoor workers with heightened exposures
In the Assessment:
- Consider climate-related factors in differential diagnosis
- Recognize that traditional diagnoses (PTSD, depression, anxiety) may have climate-related etiologies
- Assess social determinants that increase vulnerability
- Consider intersecting vulnerabilities—multiple risk factors compound impacts
In the Treatment Plan:
- Address practical post-disaster needs alongside mental health treatment
- Connect patients to community resources and support
- Consider resilience-building interventions and social prescriptions
- Tailor care to specific vulnerabilities (language-appropriate, culturally grounded, accessible)
- Remember: Integrated care means addressing both physical health impacts AND mental health consequences
Maintaining Hope and Agency
“Climate change is a threat multiplier for mental health, but it also creates opportunities—for connection, meaning, purpose, and collective action.”
As physicians, maintaining your own wellbeing while caring for affected patients requires:
- Acknowledge emotions: It’s normal to feel distressed about climate change
- Focus on what you can control: Your clinical care, advocacy, and personal actions
- Connect with others: Professional networks, climate health organizations, peer support^58,63^
- Take action: Engagement in solutions reduces distress and creates meaning^16^
- Practice self-care: You cannot serve patients effectively while depleted
A final perspective: Self-care isn’t selfish—it’s essential. Taking care of your own mental health, including your climate anxiety, makes you a better physician and allows you to sustain your work over time.
[CALL OUT BOX – Navigating Self-Care Boundaries]
Here’s something many students and physicians struggle with: Where’s the line between legitimate self-care and avoiding responsibilities? This is genuinely confusing, and you’re not alone if you’ve wrestled with questions like:
- “I’m exhausted—should I call in sick or push through?”
- “Does taking this mental health day make me unprofessional?”
- “How do I honor both my needs and my commitments?”
A useful framework: Self-care builds your capacity to show up—it’s forward-looking. This includes getting adequate sleep before clinical duties, accessing therapy for burnout, taking your scheduled time off to genuinely recharge, or stepping back from climate advocacy when you need to process eco-grief. Even when these take time, they enable you to be present, safe, and effective.
The challenge arises when we use “self-care” language to justify avoiding immediate responsibilities—like calling in sick when physically well because something more appealing arose, or routinely leaving colleagues without coverage.
A question to ask yourself: “Will this choice help me show up better for my responsibilities going forward—or am I primarily avoiding discomfort right now?” Both rest and responsibility matter. Sometimes rest is the responsible choice; sometimes showing up is the self-caring one.
Remember: Seeking support when you’re genuinely struggling is professional, not weak. If you’re frequently unsure about these boundaries, that’s worth exploring with a mentor or counselor.
[END CALL OUT BOX]
Key Takeaways
The Core Message
Climate change impacts mental health through multiple pathways—from acute trauma after disasters to chronic anxiety about the future. These impacts are not equally distributed; marginalized communities bear the greatest burden. As physicians, you have roles at multiple levels: clinical care, community resilience building, and advocacy for climate action and health equity.
What Makes This Different
Unlike many health threats, climate change creates forms of distress—eco-anxiety and solastalgia—that aren’t entirely pathological. Sometimes the most appropriate response to understanding climate change is to feel anxious. Your role is to help people channel that anxiety productively rather than letting it become paralyzing.
Your Role Matters
Every time you:
- Document climate-related factors in a patient chart
- Connect an isolated patient to a community resource
- Validate someone’s climate concerns
- Advocate for climate policy
- Take care of your own climate distress
…you’re contributing to climate mental health resilience.
Next Steps for Learning
- Seek clinical experiences: Work with disaster-affected populations, volunteer with climate organizations
- Get training: Complete Psychological First Aid training^63^
- Stay current: Follow emerging research on climate and mental health^66^
- Join organizations: Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, Climate Psychiatry Alliance^58^
- Advocate: Use your voice as a future physician to support climate action and health equity