To explore links between climate change and human mental health, researchers combined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which includes self-reported personal mental health data for nearly 2 million randomly sampled US residents, with daily meteorological data from 2002 to 2012, and found that an increase in average monthly temperature from 25-30°C to more than 30°C was associated with a 0.5 percentage point increase in the probability of self-reported mental health issues, suggesting links between climate change and mental health.
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Article #18-01528: "Empirical evidence of mental health risks posed by climate change," by Nick Obradovich, Robyn Migliorini, Martin P Paulus, and Iyad Rahwan.
MEDIA CONTACT: Nick Obradovich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; tel: 503-914-9281; e-mail: nobradovich@gmail.com
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences