A new policy briefing by the World Health Organization highlighted that the climate change impacts are posing a serious threat to mental health globally. The WHO urged policymakers to include mental health support in their climate action targets.
The policy brief launched at the Stockholm+50 conference on Friday cited the findings reported under the IPCC report published in the month of February. The report highlighted that climate change is deteriorating humans' mental health and psychosocial well-being and increasing the cases of anxiety, depression, grief, and suicidal behaviour.
While highlighting the rising risk and the minimal availability of the support, the Director of the Environment Climate Change and Health Department at WHO, Dr Maria Neira said, “The impacts of climate change are increasingly part of our daily lives, and there is very little dedicated mental health support available for people and communities dealing with climate-related hazards and long-term risk”.
Another official doctor from the department Dr Dévora Kestel mentioned that “the impact of climate change is compounding the already extremely challenging situation for mental health and mental health services globally”. As per the reports about 1 million people are struggling with mental health issues and only 1 out of 4 gets the access to needed services.
The WHO doctors urged the governments to push the mental health and psychological well-being support within the disaster risk reduction and climate action policies.
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