Date/Time
1 CE
Attendees will learn how climate change poses significant mental health risks across all age groups, with particularly severe impacts on young people, elderly individuals, and marginalized communities.
Rising temperatures directly increase rates of violence, suicide, and psychiatric hospitalizations, while people with existing psychiatric conditions face heightened vulnerability due to medication-related thermoregulatory difficulties. Beyond temperature effects, environmental changes contribute to mental health problems through air pollution, disease vector expansion, reduced crop nutrients, and both acute and chronic disaster trauma and existential "climate distress" characterized by anxiety and grief about environmental degradation.
Addressing these challenges requires comprehensive therapeutic approaches including patient education, disaster psychiatry training for mental health providers, and development of interventions, which will be summarized in this talk.
Learning Objectives
Analyze the neuropsychiatric effects of extreme heat on mental health, including thermoregulatory mechanisms and vulnerability factors.
Evaluate the mental health consequences of environmental factors including air pollution, nutritional changes, and vector-borne diseases.
Compare the psychological effects of acute environmental traumas versus chronic environmental traumas verses existential climate distress on mental health.
This activity is intended for physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, counselors and other mental health professionals.
Location: Virtual
Sponsored By: Sheppard Pratt
Cost: Free
For questions, email cme@sheppardpratt.org