For Americans uprooted by climate change, mental health is the next crisis

The Biden administration’s recent executive order calling for a comprehensive report on climate-related migration and for reorganizing the U.S. migration system comes at a critically important time.

Mental health challenges can arise as soon as disaster strikes and before migration occurs. A large body of documents show how exposures to disasters can be traumatic and detrimental to mental health.

AARON CLARK-GINSBERG, SASKIA R. VOS, SETH J. SCHWARTZ,

Across the United States, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, winter storms and rising tides are leading to more migrations. In Oregon, as of late last December, more than 1,000 people are still displaced due to the 2020 wildfires. And in Louisiana, the first so-called ‘climate change refugees’ are being resettled.

The challenges climate migrant families face are not limited to basic needs such as housing and employment. Rather, as we argue in our article on crisis related migration and family mental health, being displaced by climate change may also create substantial trauma negatively impacting mental health. It is imperative that policymakers’ take into account these mental health needs when devising climate change related policies…

Answers To 3 Questions Can Beef Up Your Resilience To Career Adversity

The concept of resiliency grew from scientists in the 1970s charged with evaluating the psychological well-being of executives under high stress during the restructuring of a telephone company. Researchers identified a group of executives with exceptional personality traits that protected them from the ravages of stress.

During the restructuring, many executives succumbed to heart attacks, became violent, got divorced and had overall poor mental health. But one-third of them thrived under the stress. Their health improved, careers soared and relationships flourished. According to the scientists, the resilient executives had a whopping 50% reduction in stress-related health problems compared to managers without stress resilience…