By Aaron Miller-
“ Obradovich and his colleagues reached this conclusion by analyzing the mental health data of nearly 2 million Americans, as well as daily meteorological and climatic data taken between 2002 and 2012.
“If we push global temperature rise into the 2 degrees-plus Celsius range, the impacts on human well-being, including mental health, may be catastrophic,” he says.
POOR SLEEP
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During a 10 year period between 2002 and 2012, approximately 2 million individuals reported the state of their mental health through the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.”We don’t exactly know why we see high temperatures or increasing temperatures produce mental health problems,” said Nick Obradovich, lead author of the study and a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. “For example, is poor sleep due to hot temperatures the thing that produces mental health problems? We have a lot of work to do to figure out precisely what is causing what”, he said.
Poor sleep can be a high contributor to mental health problems in the context of a stressed or anxious mind that struggles to sleep can spiral into a condition in which a late waking up time evolves into a pitiful cycle of despair and hopelessness, particularly for those with no professional stability. Professional people can also be susceptible to high mental health issues due to stress and strains in their personal life at home, work, or a combination of both.
Respondents was asked to report the effects of stress, depression, and “problems with emotions” on their mental health over a period of 30 days. An analysis on the responses by Obradovich and his colleagues alongside data concerning multi-year warming led to the discovery that on average, monthly temperatures hotter than 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit were associated with more reports of mental health difficulties compared to temperatures closer to 10 to 15 degrees Celsius — or 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Researchers also found that days in which heat came about suddenly significantly increased the probability of experiencing mental health issues. Overall, months with more than 25 days of precipitation increased the probability of mental health issues by 2 percentage points, compared to zero monthly precipitation.
Importantly, the effect that monthly temperatures have on mental health is worse for women and low-income individuals. The team concluded that low-income respondents were 60 percent more likely than the highest-income adults to develop mental health issues when temperatures exceed 30 degrees Celsius. Female respondents were also found to suffer higher mental health issues at a 60 percent greater rate than the men during high-temperature months.
The reason for this maybe because women have a higher level of sensitivity than men, and also have the unenviable monthly routine of menstruation to go through, which could worsen their moods and mental state. The team also found that five-year warming by just 1 degree Celsius was linked to a 2 percentage point increased prevalence of mental health issues.
HURRICANE KATRINA
Finally, an examination of mental health reports from people affected by Hurricane Katrina was conducted and contrasted with reports from people in comparable-sized places that had not been affected by the catastrophic hurricane. Researchers associated the impact of Katrina to a 4 percentage point increase in the prevalence of mental health problems.
Its implication is not difficult to extrapolate. Painful and disastrous life events can heavily impact the mental health of those who experience the unfortunate event. Horrific experiences have a hazardous effect on its victims, leading to post traumatic stress in extreme cases, sorrow and depression in the average case.
CONTRADICTIONS
One of the apparent contradictions to the research findings is why people in warmer countries do not reveal more sufferers of mental health than those in colder countries. Obradovich puts it sown to adaptation. He says it is one of the “outstanding questions in identifying the social impacts of climate change.” Because certain factors, such as lifetime adaptations to climate, cannot be accounted for, the new study allows the researchers to say only that, on average, “warming over time associates with worsened mental health over time,” he said. “There are many other place-specific factors that may moderate the effect.”
Inhabitants of warmer countries can negate the effects of mental health through the benefit of other uplifting factors associated with a warm country like the vibrancy of their social environment and any other fulfilling elements in the country. Intense and constant hot weather
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