Determinants and relationships of climate change, climate change hazards, mental health, and well-being: a systematic review

Karolin Rückle^1*Apoorv Agrawal²Hanna Andersson³Bálint Balázs⁴Erika Brattich⁵Maria Carelli⁶Claudia De Luca⁵SILVANA DI SABATINO⁵Maria Johansson³Sruthi Krishnan V²Barbara Mihók^4,7Anna Mölter²Francesco Pilla²Muhammad Saleem Pomee¹Mario Rohrer⁸GLYKERIA ROUVA⁹Paolo Ruggieri⁵Anna Scolobig⁸Eleni Vergadi⁹Elke Hertig¹

• ¹University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
• ²University College Dublin, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
• ³Lund University, Lund, Skane County, Sweden
• ⁴ESSRG Nonprofit Ltd, Budapest, Hungary
• ⁵Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
• ⁶IRCCS Hospital Company of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
• ⁷University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
• ⁸University of Geneva, Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
• ⁹School of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

Recently, the iImpacts of climate change on human health receive increasing attention in the fields of science, the media and public discourse. However, the connections of climate change with well-being and mental health are still poorly understood. Objective: As part of the Horizon Europe project TRIGGER, this reviewwe aims to deepen the understanding of the relationships between climate change and human mental health and well-being in Europe by focusing on environmental and socio-individual determinants in these relationships. Methods: This study is a systematic literature review based on the PRISMA guidelines using Embase, Medline and Web of Science. Results: 143 records were retrieved for the data analysis. The results show that climate change and its specific hazards (air pollution, floods, wildfires, meteorological variables, and temperature extremes) impact human well-being and mental health, interfering with emotions, cognitive development, and sleep, as well as increasing the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other mental health outcomes. Discussion: Mental health and well-being outcomes are complex, extremely individual, and can be long lasting. Determinants like the living surrounding (overall environment in which a human lives and conducts its daily life), human's life activities as well as economic, social, and personal factors socio-individual determinants alter the linkage between climate change and mental health. The same determinant can exert both a pathogenic and a salutogenic effect, depending on the outcome. Knowing the pathogenic and salutogenic effects of the environmental and socio-individual determinants is of high relevance to improve individual and social resilience. Several pathways were identified. For instance, higher level of education and female gender lead to perceiving climate change as a bigger threat but increase preparedness to climate hazards. Elderly, children and adolescents are at higher risks of mental health problems. On the other hand, social support, network, relation, cohesiveness and support from family and friends are in generalgenerally protective variables. Also, gGreen and blue spaces improve well-being and mental health. Overall, comparing the different hazard-outcome relationshipss as well as outcomes is difficult due to varying definitions, measurement techniques, spatial and temporal range, scales, indicators and population samples.